On the northern face of Rupakot hill, the highest point in Khotang, sits the village of Jalapa. Diktel, purportedly a ‘sugam’ city, lies on the other side five hours away. But Jalapa, with nearly 600 houses, has become the model village in the district.
In the early eighties, five SLC graduates from here—Jaiswor, Pratiman, Tanka, Ram Prasad and Kumar Rai—started a campaign to upgrade the lower secondary school in their village to a secondary school. Against the scepticism of the elders, these young men formed the Janahit Yuba Samaj, a club, something not encouraged during the then-Panchayat regime. Regardless, they banded together to raise awareness on the importance of having a high school and began gathering funds by playing deusi.
Their strategy was thus: Three of the employed club members would contribute two percent of their income to the fund while the others would donate two rupees per month. During rice planting season, villagers were encouraged to put a day’s wage towards the fund. Donations picked up so that in two years’ time, the villagers were even selling property to invest in the school. Still, the local administration refused permission for the upgrade—a mostly political call, based on the fact that the club members were supporters of the multiparty system. It wasn’t until they’d appealed to the Regional Education Directorate, Dhankuta, in 1983, that they were finally given permission.
With no government-provided teachers, the young men started teaching in the school themselves. As time went on, the teaching responsibilities were passed onto each new batch of SLC students, who would teach their juniors up until college began. This went on for eight years, until the government finally issued them a number of teachers and education could begin in earnest.
The group believed that for anything to change, the brain drain from villages to cities needed to be stopped. “All the young people with any potential were all disappearing to the cities,” says Tanka. “We wanted them to stay and work for the village.” In that vein, they decided to organise a programme to felicitate SLC graduates before they left the village. “It was a way of showing them we were proud of them, but also to remind them that we had certain expectations.”
Iman Rai, Bikash Rai and Dil Bahadur Rai eventually joined the group of five. Iman had left his job as a headmaster of a government school, while Bikash had studied at Cornell University, but unlike many of his Nepali contemporaries, came back home. And Dil had never applied for jobs elsewhere because he was determined to work in Jalapa itself.
The village now has 16 post-graduates, out of which 14 are working locally. To engage post-graduates in research on social sciences and other areas, a Social Development Research and Training Institute has been set up. The club also formed the Jalapa Education Foundation through donations from the villagers, designed to provide financial assistance to those looking to pursue higher studies. If a post-graduate works in the village for five years, the foundation funds expenses for a master’s degree or a PhD, provided they come back to the village and work for five more years.
Community schooling
When the secondary school was functional, the club members realised it would be more effective to establish primary schools in every ward so as to ensure easy access for small children. Thus the Jyoti Primary School was set up in ward no 4 in 1985 as an experiment. The new project meant the group was busier than ever.
“We would wake up at seven and head to the jungle to collect wood for school. Then we’d go to school to teach. And after school, we would go collect stones in the moonlight,” recalls Tanka. “We built the school ourselves because we couldn’t afford to hire anyone.”
But the community-supported school didn’t fare well initially, sagging in comparison to the English medium schools that were flourishing. In order to keep up with competition, the new batch of youngsters who were back in the village, and well-versed in English, decided they would convert Jyoti into an English-medium school, a decision there’s been no looking back from.
Aside from their down-home uniform—comprising of daura suruwal, dhaka topi, chaubandi and fariya—the quality of education and interactive teaching methods at Jyoti, set it apart from other schools in the region. “We want our students to learn not just what’s in their textbooks, but also about life and the various skills you need along the way,” says principal Tika Bahadur Shrestha, referring to the excursions, project work, and compulsory co-curricular activities that are encouraged at a tender age here. “It’s the only way they’ll become well-rounded people.”
Twelve of the 15 teachers at Jyoti are volunteers, the rest government teachers. “It’s a way of giving back what the village gave us, and it’s gratifying,” says Hiralal Rai, the school’s director. The school also brings in at least one guest teacher every month, or general visitors to talk to the students on various subjects.
At the moment, the school sits on a 35-ropani plot, which is being developed into the Jyoti Science and Technology Centre, and where they hope to make use of bio gas from cow manure, as well as other eco-friendly installations like briquettes, a solar oven, even their own micro-hydro peltric set. There will also be a vegetable farm where children will learn to grow their own vegetables, in the hopes of ultimately becoming self-sufficient in food supplies. There is also a separate 10-ropani plot that will be developed into a botanical garden.
An educated village
The club is planning to expand their teaching services to the entire village, to give them the tools necessary to present their home region to visitors in a knowledgable manner. Communities here are encouraged to keep roads and trails neat, and to pay close attention to personal hygiene. It is also suggested that houses put up something on display—whether a message, a quote, or some form of art—either on walls or on signboards.
There also exists a recommended code of conduct that pushes the community to be well-mannered towards visitors. One of the directives has to do with no smoking or drinking in front of children.
Medical services
Given that the district is not connected to the national road network, choppers have to be chartered in cases of medical emergency. Each of these flights cost around Rs 150,000, but people have no other option considering the district hospital is practically non-functional and hasn’t been able to retain doctors.
“It’s a huge expense, but people are so compelled that they take out massive loans to pay for these chopper trips,” says Bikash, the chair of Jalapa’s hospital management. It was to ease this problem that the community has been hard at work to set up a hospital in the village, and some progress is already being made.
Janasewa Samaj Nepal (JSN), a community organisation, took the lead and donated its land, meeting hall and funds, while a number of local organisations and individuals have contributed to the hospital in cash and kind. A donation of $1,250 was made by the Peace Corps alumni, for instance, and another sum came from community members living overseas.
Inspired by the initiative, the Kathmandu Model Hospital has extended help for training manpower, and assuring medicine supply and even tele-medicine services to the Jalapa hospital. Similarly, Miteri Hospital and Tilganga Eye Hospital have also offered their support. If all goes according to plan, the 15-bed facility is expected to begin operating starting next month.
“We want to develop the hospital as a technical education centre in the long run,” Bikash says.
Infrastructural fixes
While other VDCs in the district have been vying to get connected to the national electrical grid, Jalapa has simply refused to subscribe to the service, opting to electrify the village on its own efforts. “We did not want to increase loadshedding hours further...We would much rather sell electricity to the national grid,” says Pratiman.
Jalapa had generated 500 watts from its very own micro-hydro project in 1996. As that proved insufficient, the community had approached the neighbouring VDC of Sapteshwor, which had produced 18 kilowatts by harnessing the waters of the Tapkhola. Three VDCs—Jalapa, Sapteshwor and Kharmi—had then formed a cooperative, the Sahakari Sansatha Limited, in 1998, which has been developing the Tapkhola II hydro project, expected to generate 303 kw. Involving an investment of Rs 116 million, the project is expected to conclude by May next year.
“We will be able to replace diesel mills and run small scale industries in the village then,” Pratiman says excitedly. The village is already running a few dhaka topi, shawl and khadi factories. “Once the hydropower project is done, we’ll be able to expand commercially,” he says.
The cooperative has additionally developed the Lumjhu Khola project, a 19 kw endeavour, which will come into operation next month, enough to light 1,800 households in the three VDCs.
“We’re enjoying uninterrupted power supply at less than half the tariff of the Nepal Electricity Authority,” Pratiman says. “If we could sell the surplus from the Tapkhola project to the NEA, we’d get some solid returns on our investment.”
Aside from electricity, Jalapa locals have also constructed a 23-km road to their village from Diktel on their own. The budget they’d received from the District Development Committee for opening trails was utilised in establishing road tracks. And if that weren’t impressive enough, Jalapa has also now installed V-Sat Internet, which is distributed for free.
Community development
The JSN was registered in 1991, designed to promote community development programmes in the village. A non-profit community organisation, it played a major role in retaining the youths in the village, engaging them in rural development activities and campaigns related to improving sanitation, education, health and hygiene in the VDC, results of which are evident.
There was, for example, not a single latrine in the entire VDC in the early nineties. Now, every household has a toilet, and Jalapa was also declared an open defecation-free VDC in March this year. The JSN has also been conducting literacy classes for the elderly, which has seen an encouraging percentage of female participation: 95 percent, according to Bikash, who also heads the JSN.
The women in the classes were also encouraged to start a cooperative of their own. The members put aside one rupee each every day for six months, and with the amount collected, set up the Janasewa Bachat Tatha Rin Sahakari Sanstha. Twenty two years later, the women cooperative has transactions of over Rs 100 million. “Nobody believes it began with a one-rupee scheme,” Bikash says. The cooperative is one of the biggest such organisations in the district, and now offers up loans of up to Rs 100,000 without collateral. It has also recently expanded to the Hauchur and Kharmi VDCs.
“We identified areas of need, and sought to fill them without waiting for the government to step up,” Pratiman says of Jalapa’s many achievements. He explains that it was the community’s collective efforts that brought about these improvements, a fact that gives the locals great pride and sense of ownership. “People tend to migrate to developed places but we chose to develop our own place,” he says.
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