Program areas at NYF
Shelter programsolgapuri children's village ("olga's little oasis") opened in 2016 as a beautiful, permanent, family-style home for approximately 80 children aged 2 to 18. The enclosed olgapuri campus is staffed by a dedicated team of passionate, loving people, each of whom brings unique skills and experience to their work. Children enjoy facilities like a basketball court, a library, a sprawling vegetable garden, and more to encourage physical and mental well-being.nyf's kinship care program keeps children with their families by providing loving, stable family members with the financial scaffolding needed to ensure these children are safe, well-fed, receiving all necessary medical care, and most of all, attending school. Our social workers keep in touch with these families, ensuring that the needs of the children are being met, and making any adjustments as needed.
Vocational education and career counselingin 2017, nyf opened olgapuri vocational school (ovs) on the enclosed grounds of olgapuri children's village. Ovs offers 3-month training courses in high-demand trades including electrical, plumbing, welding, and carpentry. Those in this program receive intensive skills training from expert instructors, entrepreneurship guidance, small business admin and accounting lessons, resume-building and job search support, start-up microgrants, and connections to other young adults on similar paths towards personal economic empowerment.
Education programsover more than three decades of operation, nyf has grown into one of Nepal's largest nongovernmental scholarship providers. Our education programs now encompass grades k-12, college, medical school, and graduate school, as well as vocational education scholarships and world-class vocational education training programs.we are focused on providing these opportunities to students facing difficult obstacles, including casteism, sexism, financial hardship, and discrimination based on disability. Our students receive scholarships, as well as troubleshooting support from our social workers to ensure they can succeed.
Health programsbetween 1998 and 2017, nyf built 17 nutritional rehabilitation homes (nrhs) throughout the country. These clinics, each located near a government-run hospital, provide residential care (usually for four to six weeks) for children experiencing malnutrition, as well as their caregivers. After five years these clinics are transferred to the hospital and are monitored to ensure high-quality care continues.we contemplate that nyf will own the kathmandu valley nrh into the foreseeable future.operating from our belief in a family's ability to sustain their children's health when given the right tools and information, staff at nrhs provide personalized nursing and nutritional care to the children, helping them healthily gain weight, muscle, and stamina, while providing hands-on training for the caregivers in areas such as home health care, hygiene, and nutritional meal preparation.since 2011, nutritional outreach camps have taken nutritional intervention into remote regions, providing free medical check-ups, nutritional assessment, and care to children, as well as focused, practical education for caregivers, with an emphasis on nutrition and hygiene.our nutritional outreach camps often are held in partnership with district- and municipality-level ngos, with participation from local governments.the new life center (nlc), located just a short walk away from the flagship nutritional rehabilitation home, provides holistic care for children living with hiv, accompanied by their caregivers. Relying strongly on lessons learned through our nrhs, this center provided enhanced care, especially for those with this lifelong illness. The nlc has become a crucial piece of Nepal's hiv/aids response network and is the country's foremost source for support and expertise on pediatric hiv.nyf's ankur counseling center is Nepal's first counseling center for children. The center is leading the way in introducing crucial psychological care to children and families. Almost every nyf program involves services provided through ankur, including group therapy for mothers living with hiv, routine individual therapy for the children at olgapuri children's village, and goal setting workshops for young women in vocational training programs.covid-19 pandemic responsein mid-march 2020, nyf began responding to the covid-19 crisis. We leveraged our existing facilities, resources, and expertise to address problems caused by economic instability, especially in Nepal's cities.ankur counseling center. Using a remote-work model and conducting programming over the telephone and internet, ankur has established partnerships with local ngos serving communities impacted by domestic violence during the pandemic. Ankur staff members provide consulting services and crisis management training to individuals working at these ngos-a service that has led to the establishment of several crisis hotlines and other resources. Counselors at ankur also have made mental health services available to frontline health workers throughout kathmandu valley to help combat the risk of burnout.community nutrition kitchens. From june to august 2020, nyf's community nutrition kitchens provided hot, nutritious lunches to children in neighborhoods that were hit hard by the government-imposed lockdown. Nyf's nutrition experts make sure children in these neighborhoods have access to balanced meals at central locations like closed schools.lito for life. Lito, a nutrient-rich "super flour" made of roasted and ground grains, is distributed to the families of construction and industry workers, daily laborers, owners of small private businesses, and many more, all of whom have been unable to earn wages since the lockdowns began in march 2020. Protein- and vitamin-packed lito allows them to maintain their health for the duration of the pandemic.access to education. During the covid lockdowns in the summer of 2020, the nyf team became aware that schoolchildren living in rural areas of Nepal were not receiving any schooling at all-and that some parents had begun quickly arranging marriages for their teenage daughters in the hope that the husbands' families would have better access to food and other necessities. Nyf worked with local school districts, local governments, and another nonprofit specializing in technology solutions to design our access to education program-our largest covid response program. Our "one-room schoolhouse" approach-utilizing a large-screen tv and a laptop computer loaded with Nepal's teaching curriculum-enabled nearly 10,000 rural children to return to school during the lockdown.emergency lifeline halfway home for women. Many nepalese young people working abroad found themselves stranded when the borders closed in march. They were unable to work and unable to return home. When the nepalese government rescued them, a 14-day quarantine was imposed before each could return to their families. From june through july 2020, nyf provided a safe, friendly, women-only quarantine space during this time. These women received two weeks of housing, safe transportation, ppe, nutritious meals, mental health care, and more until they could return home to their villages.covid-19 isolation center. In partnership with local doctors, our team transformed the kathmandu valley nutritional rehabilitation home into a 50-bed covid-19 isolation center, including a four-person high-dependency unit.the isolation center welcomed patients who had tested positive for covid-19 and could not safely isolate at home. This service protected other members of the household from the virus and allowed sick individuals access to medical staff who could monitor their symptoms-lowering the risk of waiting too long to seek hospital attention. Any patients whose symptoms progressed too alarmingly received focused care in the high-dependency unit until an available hospital bed was confirmed, after which they received an ambulance ride directly to the hospital.