The end of 2019 means the completion of more than 4 years of work in Takure — four years of inspiring collaboration with local Nepali families in the beautiful Himalayas of Nepal. It’s amazing what we have been able to do in the last 4 years with the support of hundreds and thousands of people from around the world. Thank you!
Conscious Impact began as a disaster response and recovery project in Nepal, supporting families to rebuild their homes and lives following the disastrous 2015 earthquake, but our vision has always been much greater than disaster relief. From the beginning, we aimed to support long-term development, to ensure that in the next 25+ years, Nepali families in Takure gain access to a higher quality of life than ever before. After more than 4 years, we are still 100% committed to building resilience in Takure and the surrounding rural communities through slow, deep and transformative development.
We aim to strengthen the power of communities to take action, support them to manifest their visions, and ultimately empower them to create the world that they want to live in. Additionally, we strive to engage international volunteers in environmentally sustainable, effective and radical service work. Our mission is to connect people to themselves, each other and the earth, and we hope to do this for many years to come.
As we enter 2020, we celebrate what Conscious Impact has accomplished and share gratitude for the ability to continue this work. We have a lot to be thankful for this year.
Here’s the full list of our work over the past 4 years in Nepal:
A local family stands in front of their newly completed home made from environmentally sustainable CSEBs produced at our Conscious Impact site in Takure, Nepal. More than 65 homes were completed with these bricks!
Home Reconstruction and “Bricks for Nepal”
We have created and maintained a local brick business which employs 15 men and women from the Takure and Bimire communities to produce Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEBs), an environmentally sustainable alternative to fired bricks.
Our “Bricks for Nepal” program has produced 250,000 sustainable earth blocks in 4 years to be used in local reconstruction efforts. We have supported 65+ local families to rebuild their homes (20 in just the last year), plus the construction of 2 primary level schools (1 in 2019), 1 orphanage for 27 children, 3 community centers and more family household projects than we can count!
These local, environmentally sustainable earth block homes alone have saved more than 240 tons of CO2 emissions* by replacing the use of traditional fired bricks from KTM. That is more CO2 emissions than what is created in 80 roundtrip tickets from London-KTM.
*Calculated from our partner Build Up Nepal’s research and data collection (https://www.buildupnepal.com/interlocking-bricks/building-with-compressed-bricks/).
After 4 years, more than 90% of families now live in reconstructed, earthquake-safe homes, and this is a really big deal! Our CSEB Production Center is now looking at what’s next. 2020 will potentially bring new types of CSEBs to find new market opportunities within local government projects and a local NGO-supported health clinic.
The completed earthbag dome (superadobe) built by 15 participants during our first ever Earthbag Dome Training Course this November. This construction represents an environmentally sustainable, earthquake-safe and affordable alternative to cement construction, and we hope over the years to build many more! With 3 meters in diameter, this dome will create opportunities to host people more sustainably and comfortably at our camp.
Natural Building and Sustainable Construction
We have taught and trained hundreds of people from around the world and the local Nepali community in sustainable construction techniques, including earthbags (and superadobe), CSEBs, rammed earth, cob, bamboo, earthen floors, natural plastering and more!
This past November, we completed our first ever Earthbag Dome Training Course, during which we built a dome with 15 participants in less than 2 weeks. Our first ever Introduction to Natural Building training finished this week. We hope to continue offering many different natural building training courses over the years.
We completed 3 community earthbag projects – 2 family homes and this past year 1 coffee collection and cooperative processing center.
Sano Kanchi Ranamagar, a member of the Takure Coffee Cooperative, poses proudly next to one of the 100+ coffee trees she and her husband have planted. She, as well as many other farmers, eagerly await this year’s first harvest of coffee.
Agriculture & Agroforestry
We have planted more than 15,000 trees with more than 85 local farmers (this includes an additional 3300 trees in 2019 alone). With a focus on increasing farmer’s income generation and livelihood security, as well as restoring local ecology, we have collaborated with the community to plant coffee, an emerging high value crop in Nepal, as well as citrus and other local income-generating forest trees.
These trees sequester carbon into the soil, replenish natural groundwater sources and provide habitat for beneficial wildlife. A few estimates report that 15,000 trees planted accounts for more than 450 tons of CO2 emissions saved from the environment each year, or more than 10,000 tons in their lifetime.* We plan to continue planting thousands of trees each year.
*https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/76
We have trained more than 100 local farmers in sustainable agriculture and permaculture practices. This includes bio-pesticide creation, biochar processing, mushroom cultivation, multi-layered cropping, and bio-intensive tree planting.
We supported the creation of a 50 member local organic coffee growing cooperative with 50 farmers (25 men and 25 women) committed to managing the harvest and processing of coffee in Takure. We are currently providing this cooperative with the knowledge, training and equipment required for specialty coffee processing to ensure they get the most money for their crop possible. Stay tuned for more in January/February 2020 as the first harvests begin!
We completed 3 collaborative pond projects to support farmers in access to irrigation for farming purposes. Year-round water supply is limited in Takure, and a pond enables farmers to irrigate during the dry season and to plant a larger diversity of crops.
We have assisted more than 50 farmers in their annual rice harvesting. Every year families harvest up to 200 kg of rice to eat for the remainder of the year. As a part of our farmer outreach and evaluation program, we send helping hands and connect with new farmers in the area.
After learning about bottle bricks, our waste management solution for plastic waste collected, local youth participated in a community roadside cleanup where they collected plastic trash and stuffed it into bottles. Then for fun, we played Plastic Bottle Brick Bowling.
Youth
We expanded the Girls Empowerment classes to 2 high schools and now have begun a Boys Empowerment Program, continuing to focus on creating safe spaces for young people to explore themselves, their community and their culture.
We began our “Chutti Macai Bhutti” program to engage youth while on school holiday in outdoor, environmental educational activities like waste management, sustainable building, and the impact humans have on the environment. The program ran for 2 weeks with 6 half-day sessions.
We hosted more than 100 local youth from ages 12-17 years in our “Camp Youth Days” where they participated in trainings, workshops, outdoor education activities, and of course, games!
We offered After School Programs three times each week for local students to get homework help and engage in educational activities after school.
A 40,000 liter water tank for 65+ families in the community was completed this last year. This tank will triple the current water storage capacity of the community and help increase water security in Takure.
Community Projects
We completed a 40,000 liter water tank for more than 65 families in Takure, tripling their current water storage capacity.
We started an Adult English Class program for community members after multiple community requests. The classes regularly engage more than 15 adults, including the local school principle, leaders of the women’s microfinance cooperative and a 65-year-old retiree wanting to learn something new.
We began our Homestay & Community Dinner Programs, where families are able to host volunteers in their homes, provide food and accommodations and generate income for their families. Our volunteers love the intimate cultural exchange, and just last year we ate delicious dal bhat at more than 40 family homes across the region. Now, we offer weekly homestays to any interested volunteers wishing to spend a night with a family, explore new regions of the mountains and visit local tourist sites. There are currently 20 Nepali families participating in the program, and more joining soon.
We supported Takure Primary School’s inaugural school snack program in which students (ages 3-12 years) are fed half way through the school day to keep them engaged and healthy.
We supported a local Nawalpur community organization’s efforts to purchase a new ambulance for the hospital to transport the most vulnerable families in crisis.
We sponsored 6 local women to travel to an annual women’s conference in southern Nepal to connect and learn about women’s empowerment and leadership in Nepal.
And that’s not even everything! We are SO grateful to the more than 150 international volunteers that joined us in Nepal this year, and to the hundreds of people around the world that donated to support this work. We thank you for supporting long-term, sustainable, resilience-building development work and promise to continue this work for years to come. And lastly, we thank all of the amazing Nepalis in Takure and around the country that have made this work possible. Without you, we would not exist.
Happy New Year!
