Disability and Development Partners

30/12/2025

15/12/2025

Thank you, SHRUTI friends, for having and inspiring us! We look forward to staying in touch!

15/12/2025

Sita gave us a lovely welcome to her grocery shop and introduced us to her husband Nabaraj and their little lad. We had met at the community media training workshop, where Sita had been a very active and thoughtful contributor.

She thanked Zain for that experience, feeling very positive about what she’d learned, for example about interviewing and the use of social media. She is thinking of using TikTok to advertise her shop, and, with a bit of luck, to go viral! Together with Prem Bahadur and Sujata from her newly-established self-help group (SHG), Sita will report back to the group at their next meeting.

She is the Treasurer of the SHG. It is already making a difference, with opportunities to network, meet new people and learn from them. Nabaraj is also a member, and told us he was overwhelmed – in a good way! – by the experience so far. It’s his first time belonging to a group like this: he’s learning a lot. He tends to be quiet in the meetings, but feels he could ask questions if necessary, and discusses the issues with Sita at home.

Business is ok: "thikai chha." The shop hadn’t been doing too well until recently when, thanks to livelihood support from our project, she was able to invest in ingredients for chatpati and panipuri snacks which have proved popular among passing kids from the school just down the road.

Sita is very positive about the attitudes of her Gagalphedi neighbours, who often help with reaching things on the shop’s top shelves, looking after the child, or taking Nabaraj to collect disability benefits. The biggest problem for disabled people, she thinks, are money, accessibility and work opportunities.

She suspects disabled women have more problems than men. In her case, she is responsible for everything: their son's childcare, getting him to school (and affording the bill), running the home, cooking… and Nabaraj depends on her too. Sita hopes that her community media activities will raise awareness about the lives of disabled women.

15/12/2025

Prem Bahadur is happy to be the Chairperson of his self-help group (SHG). He comes from a very remote part of Nepal with few educational opportunities. He’s doing his best and feeling confident about the challenge. Everybody knows Prem Bahadur from his café in the centre of Gagalphedi, right opposite the Ward Office which stands next to the Pipal tree and still has broken front windows from the GenZ protests in September 2025.

One of the elected Ward members drops into the café. He thinks that the accessibility of buildings and infrastructure is a main problem for disabled people here, especially blind people, and they are trying to do their bit at the Ward Office. There is no lift, but at least there’s a space where one could go in future. The Ward has some budget for disability, and they will help people who come with requests as best they can, or ‘signpost’ them towards other sources of support.

Prem Bahadur says that the SHG meetings have been held upstairs, kindly provided by the Ward, but although most people are physically disabled, there are no wheelchair users; everyone, including three members with visual impairments, can be helped up the stairs.

Prem Bahadur enjoyed the community media training, and picked up useful tips about conducting respectful interviews which he’s ready to feed back to the SHG. He has been in business for many years, and has come to realize the importance of education for many areas of life. Prem Bahadur is very interested in the possibilities offered by mobile technology, and keen to learn, but is worried about the writing side. We suggest that visual and verbal content could be even more effective.

Thanks to Prem Bahadur for a very tasty momo and chow mein lunch. We hope that FWDN’s livelihood support programme will be useful for developing the café business and make it more profitable.

15/12/2025

Sita is the chairperson of the SHG whose meeting we attended. FWDN’s social mobilizer Ambika will gradually hand over the running of meetings, so they can carry on independently beyond the project. Alongside Ambika’s example will be leadership training for Sita and all the other chairs, secretaries and treasurers.

Sita feels quite confident, being fairly used to public speaking, and knowing about some of the issues involved. But it’s a challenge making sure that all the members, with all their different experiences and needs, can engage with the meeting.

Having taken part in our community media workshop, Sita will pass on what she learned to the other members; her teacher training should be useful. She thinks that social media may be of limited use for rural people now, but might open up new possibilities in future.

Sita had a grocery shop until she got married; for the last four years she has been farming in this more rural part of the Municipality. With FWDN’s support, she invested in manure and other fertilizer, and a good watering can, keeping some back for other inputs later in the year. She is farming land near a river, which is handy for irrigation and not too risky outside the rainy season, and expects to be harvesting wheat in a few months’ time.

With a disabled husband and their young child as well as the crops to look after, Sita has a lot on her plate. When recounting the difficulties of finding a teaching position, she was on the verge of tears. But the people around them, especially her parents, are very supportive.

The SHG is only two months old, but seems to be proving worthwhile. It has brought disabled people a forum to meet, get to know and learn from others, finding a sense of belonging and a collective voice. “Disabled people are no longer just staying at home,” says Sita.

15/12/2025

We met Radha and her mother Srijana in the warm winter sun following their self-help group meeting at the Bhadrabas Health Post. Radha had recently been helped to invest in a goat and two-month-old kids, which sound like they’re growing nicely. They don’t have names: all the goats are called Muni.

Mother and daughter have plenty of goat-rearing experience, so raising them isn’t hard. They can collect fodder in nearby forests – Radha show us all the associated scratches on her arms, and reassures us that she has started using gloves now. They also needed to buy some supplementary feed.

So now the plan is for the goats to multiply, and they will sell each one on after 2-3 years. A large goat should fetch about 25,000 rupees. They don’t have their own billy at the moment, so have to visit other farmers for procreation purposes.

Radha finds it hard to remember everything that goes on at the SHG, but she is learning to recognize and understand other disabled people and their needs. She wasn’t in very good shape before, she says, but now – with the support of her parents, the SHG, FWDN and others – things are looking up.

15/12/2025

The DDP team attended a self-help group (SHG) meeting held at the Bhadrabas Health Post in Kageshwori Manohara Municipality on 9 December. The group serves two adjoining wards, and this was just its second monthly meeting since formation in October.

We all took part in a round of introductions, getting a sense of the range of people involved: carers, Deaf people, those with psychosocial or learning disabilities, spinal cord injury and other physical challenges. FWDN’s Treasurer Kamala, who has many years’ health work experience, interpreted for the group of Deaf women, not all of whom had the opportunity to learn much Sign Language in this rural area away from the centre of Kathmandu.

Ambika and Aarohi from Fwdn Nepal did a great job organizing the meeting, and will gradually hand responsibility to the SHG’s own leadership. Members signed for their transport and lunch costs, and each invested 100 rupees in the group’s savings, which will mount up over time into a loan fund for anyone in need.

Two people who had attended the community media workshop reported back to the group, and Ambika gave a very clear and authoritative session about understanding different types of disability, with the help of a useful leaflet produced by the organization CBM. When one member defined disability as in some way “lacking”, Ambika gently offered an alternative view, where disability is not inherent in individuals, or their “fault”, but more about the need to tackle barriers and develop enabling, inclusive environments.

Dave took the opportunity to provide some insights into the experience of people with spinal cord injuries, which was acknowledged with spontaneous applause. At the end, the summary minutes were read out and everyone signed them, some writing their names and others using thumbprints. The next meeting, to focus on the registration and benefits of disability identity cards, will be at the neighbouring Ward’s office. The building is not accessible, so it will be held outside.

13/12/2025

Ram Chandra very kindly took us home after the community media workshop to see his family printing business. The taxi driver was helpful as Ram Chandra transferred from his wheelchair, and took us right to the gate down a very narrow alleyway.

He showed us into a corrugated lean-to where his wife was busy spreading ink, and flicking the printed bags onto a pile. The bags are for hospitals, schools, cafés and other clients. Luckily their young daughter, whose English was far better than my broken Nepali efforts, was on hand to help interpret.

Ram Chandra is glad to chair the SHG serving the three most urban wards in the Municipality. It gave him the opportunity to join the community media training, and to meet the delegation from DDP. One of the highlights of the training was when Ram Chandra and his group acted out an effective sketch about challenging false assumptions about disabled people.

Livelihood support from Fwdn Nepal has been useful for bringing in materials needed for the business, and new skills in digital media could be useful for marketing the service. At the moment, they go out with samples to attract potential new customers.

Business is ok, says Ram Chandra. It turns out that he had only three days’ training when he started out, and is otherwise entirely self-taught, passing his expertise on to other people along the way.

13/12/2025

It was a great pleasure to be able to meet 15 new people from all over the municipality of Kageshwori Manohara, for two days of Community Media training with an international team consisting of Sushant and Sashi from Dhrc Nepal, and Dave and Zain from DDP.

Between them, they represented Indonesia, Nepal, UK and Zimbabwe, and the event was graced by the presence of a Paralympian sprinter, Maiya, among the friendly, dynamic and participants from a range of interesting backgrounds.

They threw themselves into group activities, practice interviews, sketches, and discussions of issues such as accessibility, transport, childcare, and attitudes to disability.

This was the first step towards a network of Community Correspondents belonging to self-help groups for disabled people in the area, and family caregivers, convened with the help of Fwdn Nepal Social Mobilizer Ambika.

Over the next few months, through interviews, video clips and social media posts, the Community Correspondents will begin reporting on the lives, challenges and achievements of disabled people in this part of Nepal. We look forward to staying in touch!

08/12/2025

Thanks to everyone who took part in the two-day Community Media workshop with DDP and Dhrc Nepal, and to कागेश्वरी मनोहरा नगरपालिका-Kageshwori Manohara Municipality and each Ward office for their support for the self-help groups (SHGs) established by Fwdn Nepal.

07/12/2025

Thanks to the team at Fwdn Nepal, for a very informative and pleasant meeting on Friday with Nirmala, Rama, Aarohi, Sabina and Ambika, who has done a great job on the ground in Kathmandu so that five disability self-groups could get up and running this year.

In the process, participants have already gained valuable support which will have long-term benefits, including with disability ID card applications or replacement, access to assistive devices, bank accounts, and liaising with their local Ward offices.

The first 11 people are also starting to develop new or existing income-generation activities such as small groceries, raising animals or vegetables, selling mobiles and accessories, handicrafts and even a printing press.

Thank you, FWDN, for all these positive practical impacts for disabled people in a part of the capital where it seems there hadn’t been a great deal of work going on the disability field.