Getting ready to Launch our Women's Initiative Project

Our coordinator, Patricia, has arrived from Austrailia and has begun exploring the situation here in the Kathmandu Valley. Sunday we went to Bhaktapur to see the products and workmanship of what Nepal produces. I learned a few things along the way and we had a great shopping day.

Wool yarn store in Kathmandu

Although we've started the workshop for hats and gloves, the women are not ready to produce anything to sell or give as gifts just yet. We are at the point now where we need to select various styles and colors and get the women to pick one style to specialize in. We had a little meeting with the ladies and we discussed a tentitive pay schedule. We came up with a schedule that will allow the women to earn enough to enjoy life a bit.

Many work initiatives pay either a low salary or a small commission; we will provide both. Work initiatives, in our opinion, should not just provide a starvation wage. We also provide a nutricious lunch and an afternoon snack and tea. They only need to work from 10 am to 4 pm.

The women have chosen to sit on the floor, but we have cushions and the are comfortable.

Patricia also plans to make natural fiber shopping bags to export and even brought some patterns.  Nepal has some interesting fabrics and patterns, so it will be an pleasing mix of culture with Westernized variations on traditional themes.

A practice set of hat and glove-not high quality wool. 

This is the third week for our women's group and rather than having the normal attrition that we've had in the past, the group has actually accepted a new member. We provide them with a pleasent setting and all the supplies they need and they have responded quite favorably. Ranjana, the group leader/teacher, is a lovely young woman who's taken advantage of as much training as she could throughout her life and does her best. One of the problems with elevating Nepal is that many INGOs/nonprofits come with money and provide a month of sewing, knitting or looming training, leave the sewing machine/loom for the young woman and leave them without enough skills to find their way. One woman we provided emergency funds for after the earthquake had a sewing machine in her room with no way to use it for an income.

Thursday Patricia went to Kathmandu with Sujit to explore pashmina possibilities. She had a wonderful idea. We plan to use local women in other initiatives to start with. This will assure better quality, as we do not plan to deal in inferior products. We will use only the highest quality materials and inspect the products well.

I hope you follow along with us. We'll be putting the crowdfunder together as soon as we get a few more details worked out. Being as we are a very small NGO in a very small country our marketing strategy is to provide an awesome value for a donation, tax deductible if you are in the US.

 We'll have official news soon, so please stay tuned.

Sujit with Hari's taxi.

For all of you who've been asking how to help (other than sending a donation) please retweet and share our appeals often and if you do give a donation please post a picture of the hat/gloves and give a sincere reveiw of your gifts.

Money, Money-Everyone's Needing Money. Do You?

Our agency, Kay Garnay for Nepal is looking for high school students who want to earn money for traveling. If you have good connections to high schools or would like to establish some, we have a great part-time job for you.  

 

Our offer:

Introduce high schools in your town to our line of  school spirit hat and glove sets in school colors. The school will become your account and you will get commission for each set they order. You do not have to close the sale, just introduce us to the band/orchestra teacher/cheerleading team captain, etc. We can pay you upon delivery or we can save it in the bank in Nepal for you at 9% interest. When you are ready to come to Nepal we can buy the ticket and have the rest for you to spend while you are here. If there isn't enough for airfare we can send your money to you via Paypal. You can use your own money for the balance or keep the money.  

If you choose to go to Nepal we will act as host for you. We'll pick you up from the airport and provide accommodations at no charge if you'd like to volunteer with us. We can arrange for your trekking and will act as your point of contact throughout your stay in Nepal.

If your plans change and you are unable to come to Nepal you will get the entire amount refunded along with the interest paid via Paypal. 

 

Requirements:

Must be a self-starter.

Must be able to work alone or have a partner working with you. 

We will send you some business cards, sales materials and a sample set. We suggest two people team up together for this project and we are happy to hire two for each town or city.  

About the products:

We make custom, handcrafted, knitted hats and gloves in school or club colors. These are the highest quality of wool with micro-fiber lining in an assortment of styles.

Why are we offering this? Kay Garnay is a 3 year old NGO registered in Nepal. I am a retired American widow and founded the agency after the devastating earthquakes of 2015. You can learn about our work in other blog posts and about me at https://frugaltravelsnepal.blogspot.com/ where I've been blogging for 7 years about Nepal.

We have started our women's group and are eager to begin making woolen hat and glove sets for our customers. People wonder how to help the needy in less developed countries. I believe the best thing you can do for any struggling people, whether it be or , is to provide a job. That's how we plan to help the women of our little Newar village in the beautiful Kathmandu Valley.

 

Here's something you can do to earn a bit or maybe pass on to someone. Ya know how high school football teams are all about school spirit? We're puttting a project together whereby young people who want to travel can go to the school and see if they want to do a fundraiser. We'll send the hat/glove sets in the school colors the school initials. We should have about 5-6 styles to choose from. If a person wants to get a school to do this we can give them $1 per set that the school orders. I'd expect a school should do at least 200 sets. It would only take a few phone calls and a meeting and then a bit of PR, yes? They will be high-quality wool with microfiber lining.  Total cost is only $60 with the school splitting the shipping cost and keeping 1/2 the retail price. I would love to have some students do this and get money for traveling.

Here's a blog post about the project, as well as some background information about Kay Garnay for Nepal, registered NGO: https://kaygarnayfornepal.--handcraft.html