Project Details


WSIS Prizes Contest 2022 Champion

The Himalayan Exchange


Description

The Himalayan Exchange program is an exclusive community service, cultural exchange, learning, and fun-based student exchange program conducted in needy areas of Nepal. International students live with the Nepalese families in a rural area in local style, exchange cultures, and facilitate computer classes as they explore the Nepali lifestyle and gather life-long memories and learning. It is typically a month-long or 6-week long program.

Three batches of Telecom ParisTech students participated in the program in 2017, 2018, and 2019 at three different rural districts of Nepal. They taught computer lessons using audio-visual methods to not just students but also teachers. In the meantime, they also repair the computers and make them workable. They succeed in embedding the basic computer concept effectively to the students of unprivileged areas of Nepal. It enabled some students to choose their future careers in the technology industry.

The project has been canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID pandemic. However, the project is intended to resume from 2022.

Project website

https://www.fellowshipnepal.com/programs/the-himalayan-exchange/


Action lines related to this project
  • AL C3. Access to information and knowledge
  • AL C11. International and regional cooperation 2022
Sustainable development goals related to this project
  • Goal 4: Quality education
  • Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals

Coverage
  • Nepal (Republic of)

Status

Ongoing

Start date

2017

End date

Not set


Target beneficiary group(s)
  • Remote and rural communities
  • Students of the government schools in rural parts of Nepal

Replicability

The model of the project is simple and straightforward. Our goal is clear. The students from privileged countries come to the villages of the unprivileged country Nepal and exchange their knowledge. Normally students in each batch plan how they are going to achieve the goal. However, as a facilitator of the program, Global Fellowship Nepal closely inspects the program and adapts based on the learning every time. As mentioned above, the project has been successfully conducted in three consecutive years. The sequence got broken due to Covid and it is now resuming again from 2022.


Sustainability

In Nepalese villages, there are no qualified computer teachers. Even though the government has a mandatory Computer course in the education syllable, in the majority of the government schools there are no dedicated computer teachers. The computer is being taught by anyone with very little knowledge just for the sake of teaching. And the teaching medium used to be 100% theoretical. One can imagine the impact of teaching computer lessons like MS Word, MS Excel without any practical sessions.

The Himalayan Exchange takes three objectives before entering any school:
1. Function the computer lab by repairing the repairable computers and setting up a process.
2. Teaching students with a 100% practical approach in a lab using an audio-visual medium.
3. Teach the teachers too and make them continue teaching the students more effectively in the future.

The program by far has been highly sustainable. The computer labs have been continuing to function properly. The school administration has become more serious about managing dedicated computer teachers. The interested students have continued their learning after the strong foundational knowledge gained by the project.


WSIS values promotion

1) Freedom: The families of rural villages of Nepal are detained by the poor economic condition. Our project helps students to be technologically strong and pursue to give a better life to their families in the future. 2) Equality: Our selected villages for the project are located in remote and unprivileged areas. Our endeavor in those parts of Nepal helps to reduce the knowledge gap between students of villages and nearby towns. 3) Solidarity: Generally by the time we complete the project, everyone (students, teachers, school administration) get on the same page on the benefit of better computer education. 4) Tolerance: This implies more to the international students. Especially for the first few days, they had a hard time making themselves well adjusted with the very little facility lifestyle in the rural villages of Nepal. The hardship later on usually helped them to increase empathy and a flexible mindset. 5) Shared responsibility: The Key stakeholders of the project are village students, international students, teachers, school administration, host families, villagers, and GFN. All the stakeholders closely collaborate to uplift the computer knowledge of Nepalese students in remote areas. 6) Respect for nature: During the project, apart from teaching computer, we also organize a few other small activities. One of the activities is an environmental awareness campaign, where students and international participants collaborate with villagers to organize a rally collecting plastics on the soil.


Entity name

Global Fellowship Nepal (GFN)

Entity country—type

Nepal (Republic of) Private Sector

Entity website

https://www.fellowshipnepal.com/