Awareness

• To educate and increase awareness of issues facing the Foundation’s targeted groups, tribes and other minority communities.
• To highlight problems in the community and raise awareness of how to create change in the community and the country.

Himalayan Nepal Foundation seeks to increase the coverage of Nepalese issues in two ways. One: the coverage must begin at the local level in the local communities (grass root level), particularly indigenous people, uneducated people, helpless women, drug addicted young men, women and children from vulnerable background, street children, orphans and poor and spread to national level to create change for the country.  Two: Nepal is an international tourist destination, yet many of these visitors are unaware of the challenges many locals face everyday. As a result, the awareness campaigns must draw in the international community and encourage the world to become involved.  

The local level awareness programs try to emphasize the importance of education and to show different ways an individual can maintain good health in his/her own home. HNF targets to provide extensive opportunities and sustained support for social empowerment to socially excluded groups with priority given to orphans, poor children, drug addicted youth and adults, women, dalit (known as untouchable caste people) girls and women. Education on the importance of continuing to attend school, the importance of supporting oneself via a career, the dangers of sex trafficking, and the harm of drug use are key to helping to create an informed community.  These campaigns help individuals to know both the cause of the problem and the effects it has on the community. Awareness programs about sex trafficking especially help girls to learn about what trafficking is and how to avoid tricks used by strangers who come to their villages and try to lure them.

It is Himalayan Nepal Foundation’s hope that by providing awareness campaigns about these issues that the local community and the national government can reduce the problems. At the local level, these campaigns increase socialization among community members and encourage them to live a better life. HNF focuses on using the local youths to teach their local people through plays, teaching programs, discussions, songs, and real stories with their testimonies. HNF also appreciates the assistance of the health workers and doctors who visit the community to educate local people that good health is the main foundation for their life.

By beginning at the local level, awareness program helps to reduce stigma of the problem and the possibilities for discrimination by providing a forum for community members to discuss the issues and build shared accountability for preventative action. In addition, monitoring the programs at the local level allows for more immediate response to the communities’ needs and rights on these problems.