DOHA AT THE halfway stage of its four-year mission to improve the quality of education and build resilience to natural disasters into schools in Nepal, Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) in partnership with Vodafone Qatar has reported impressive progress in protecting communities and saving lives across the country.
“At Vodafone, we believe our role goes beyond offering products and services, which is why we established this partnership with Reach Out To Asia in 2009 as we aim to contribute to community development in Qatar and also in other countries such as Nepal where the support is needed,” said Dana Haidan, head of corporate responsibility at Vodafone Qatar.
“Our partnership with Reach Out to Asia is a longstanding commitment that reflects our belief in the importance of collaboration between the private agencies and NGOs as both compliment each other with their set of unique skills and expertise and their joint efforts optimise the impact that ensures the benefits of the communities in need are widely spread,” continued Dana.
Despite making considerable progress towards reducing poverty, Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in South Asia. In addition, large areas of the country are all too frequently devastated by natural disasters, including earthquakes and flooding.
Given that a considerable percentage of Vodafone customers are from Nepal, Vodafone decided to partner with ROTA and invest in community development in Nepal as a result of its belief in its corporate responsibility to reach out and give back.
Working in 22 villages in the Kailali district of western Nepal, the Vodafone-ROTA partnership, through the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) project, has improved the lives of 68,000 students and 1,450 teachers in 150 schools since 2010.
“Disaster risk reduction (DRR) begins with the belief that there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ disaster, only natural hazards. DRR aims to reduce the damage caused by natural calamities like earthquakes and floods by understanding the hazard and knowing how to prevent or reduce the devastation it can cause,” Rania Abou Mosleh, international programme specialist, said.
Determined to promote ‘safe school’ standards amongst parents, students and teachers at both the district and national level, ROTA, in partnership with Mercy Corps, Action Aid in Nepal and the Nepal Red Cross, has supplied first-aid training and equipment to 35 schools, brought together 55 schools to participate in a DRR awareness raising quiz and planted 10,000 seedlings to increase land retention.
Nirmala Bam Malla, head teacher of Saraswoti Secondary School in Durgauli, said: “The first-aid training has proved to be one of the most worthy trainings for the school. We are proud since we have four trained first-aid teachers and students who have been doing wonderful jobs. It has supported us to make the school safe.”
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