Freedom to Learn

Who we are

Who do we work with and what needs do we address?

Our primary aim is to improve access to, and quality of, education for children from some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in Nepal. State education in Nepal is severely underfunded, violence in schools in endemic, government teachers are under qualified and underpaid with limited resources to meet infrastructure needs, running costs, water and sanitation and essential education materials. The children who attend government schools in Nepal are from the poorest and most vulnerable families in the community, often discriminated against for attending a state school, and therefore more often than not, don't go to school at all. We work to challenge this prejudice.

How we do that:

However successful in the short term, we found focusing on educational projects and sponsorship as isolated initiatives often did not bring about the deep structural changes needed in many of these schools.

So we listened and learned, (just as we hope our students do!) We developed a more consultative, holistic, creative approach called ‘Act on Education’. This uses innovative methods to engage children, teachers, parents and local authorities in identifying problems and coming up with creative solutions - we all become problem solvers. We then work closely with local civil society organisations and local government to make schools the heart of the community, and develop and implement a variety of locally devised, relevant, and therefore impactful projects (so far: school commute bike project, nutritious school lunches, English teaching, teacher training, local government lobbying and educational policy development with District Education Officials). We are proud that Freedom to Learn is now bringing about lasting and sustainable change for just under 5000 children and their families.

Why Does it Matter? 

The access to and quality of education directly impacts the achievement of the all important Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) set by the UN to be accomplished by 2030. To state the obvious - Education matters because generates equality, improving the life chances of children who otherwise would continue to live in extreme poverty, quality eduction is a vital factor in creating economic and social wellbeing in communities and society as a whole, and is a Human Right under international law. 

Our programmes address issues including gender discrimination, entrepreneurial experience, micro-finance management, encouraging good health and sanitation practices, high literacy ability, integration between caste and caste discrimination. Together these empower a community to break out of stifling oppression and the cycle of poverty, bringing about positive change in their communities and in their wider society in Nepal.

Activities

What exactly do we do?

We work with a network of numerous local and reputable educational NGOs which work together to identify the myriad of complex problems and collaborate to develop participative and holistic approaches to solving these problems.  Currently we facilitate 7 innovative programmes:

• Applied Drama and Forum Theatre: Creative Community building in Schools and the wider community - the problem solving and confidence building part of our work.
• Ride for Life: Journey’s to school and life and learning with bikes (who’d have thought you can also learn maths and english with a bike?!).
• Edulift: Explorer education projects, creative and critical thinking, the spoken word and Careers Counselling and work experience with 16-18yr olds.
• Training: Quality and relevant training for teachers and facilitators across all the programmes.
• Materials, running costs and school staff: Providing the necessary practicalities of school.
• Clean Water and Sanitation: Safe water supply equipment and building toilets
• Sister Schools: Advocacy, Global friendship and cultural understanding with schools in the UK.

We focus on 5 schools, 3 in the district of Kavre, and 2 in Gorkhana near Kathmandu. We work directly with over 2,600 students every week, and with more than 5000 on various projects annually in the wider community. We work mainly with the Municipality Govt of Panauti and are involved in the current development of the 2021 Education Policy.

Evidence from Monitoring and Evaluation  from the last 2 years shows the work we have done in each school is having a significant impact. For example in the schools where we work:

• School attendance registers show an increase in Primary age attendance; on average up by 23.2% in two years.
• The girls drop out rate has decreased from 11%.
• Our creative drama and art programmes, including workshops and events with the whole community, has achieved some magnificent results including Parent and Teacher Associations being set up, hiring school cleaners, money being raised for school meals and enough funds raised in several localities to build school toilets.
• 92% of students state that they feel more confident since participating in our project work and that they have noticed improved access to education and increased value in going to school.
• Learning environments have consistently improved; from  more colourfully decorated classroom walls, floors and windows, to better trained existing staff and more qualified new staff who use fun, creative and enticing classroom techniques.
• Our collaborative partners have undertaken training and capacity building for organisations in areas such as child protection, fundraising, good governance, project design and management, and monitoring and evaluation and started to use it in order to ensure that they become professional and responsible organisations in their own right.