Sindhupalchok district is the most vulnerable district of Nepal in terms of floods, frequent landslides and soil erosion. There are various reasons for landslides and land damage. Among them, geological conditions, unorganized physical infrastructure construction, unscientific farming system and the negative impact of climate change are the main reasons. Land degradation affects everyone, but people with disabilities are at high risk. People with disabilities are among the most neglected and disadvantaged groups in the community. Their issues about development, disaster risk and climate change are rarely addressed. There are only 654 people with disabilities in Indrawati Rural Municipality. They are the most at risk from landslides. The project will support the persons with disabilities to organize themselves into groups which will be strengthened through capacity development and establishing a functional network of PwDs so that they can be engaged with local government and other duty bearers for their rights and disability inclusive development planning and land conservation practices.
The PwDs will be trained with the short term technical and vocational skills for commercial agro-forestry plantation activities such as Banana Farming, Avocado, Citrus species Organic agriculture farming, Bamboo plantation etc in the degraded land which could have multiple benefits in terms of stabilizing the degraded land and also generating income for PwDs. They will be capacitated in leadership and advocacy skills for effectively engaging in policy advocacy and lobbying with local government and public service providers to integrate their issues in community and local planning processes for disability inclusive development and land conservation practices. The project works with local government and other public and private stakeholders for translating UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and Sustainable Development Goals with the motto of inclusive development and Leave No On Behind into promoting disability inclusive land conservation at community and local level. The action will set an exemplary result in engaging the persons with disability in reclaiming degraded land and promoting disability inclusive land conservation and development practices. The project reclaims about 425 ropanis of degraded lands of the project area through effective engagement of PwDs, which will be established as a demonstration plot of land reclamation managed by groups of PwDs.
