Improving Family Health in Southern Nepal

Feb. 19, 2008—Girls in Nepal face many hurdles in meeting their full potential. With poor access to education and limited health services, many girls marry early and begin childbearing at a very young age, resulting in high rates of pregnancy-related complications and maternal death.

Nowhere are these barriers more pronounced than in the country’s Terai region, a mostly agricultural area that straddles Nepal’s southern border with India.

The area includes almost half of Nepal’s population, including a large number of marginalized communities such as Dalits. Tarai Dalits are the most disadvantaged group in the country. Most are landless and work as laborers on farms owned by higher caste families, and face enormous social exclusion.

Today, CEDPA is partnering with World Learning to improve the health of women, girls and their families within the Central Terai region.

Expanding Voluntary Use of Contraceptives in the Central Terai Region of Nepal, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, is increasing access to lifesaving family planning services and improving lives within three districts of Terai: Bara, Rautahat and Sarlahi.

Over the next two years, the project will reach 64,000 men and women, both youth and married couples, to increase their access to modern family planning methods and improve the quality of the family planning services in facilities and in the community.

Peer educators are trained to lead group discussions about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS to improved health.

This is especially important in Central Terai, where girls are married early and move to live with their husband and his family when they are 15 to16 years old. On average, women are 25 years of age and have three children before they begin using contraception.

Under the project, young men and women are being trained as peer educators to lead discussions with their peers on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, and engage them in household and community activities to mobilize support for improved health.

Adult volunteers are also being trained to provide counseling and family planning services to clients at the door-step. At the same time, local facilities will be strengthened to provide improved counseling and quality of care to family planning clients, including youth in their catchments areas and ensuring a continuous stock of commodities.

To improve the policy environment, CEDPA is training stakeholders and champions to conduct advocacy campaigns that will improve support for expanded family planning service provision and address harmful traditional practices.

The project builds on CEDPA’s deep roots in Nepal. Since 1988, CEDPA/Nepal has provided women and girls with the knowledge, resources and skills to advocate for their social, educational and reproductive health needs.

CEDPA uses community mobilization activities and technical assistance to build the capacity of communities and local groups for sustained, focused action to ensure girls’ access to education and improve women’s reproductive and maternal health.

Learn more about CEDPA’s work in Nepal.

  What is RSS?