What can you do with 3 dollars or RM10? To buy 2 meals? Or you can support a community in need by improving their lives?

About us and Tamang Community

TingRu and I (HanHoong) are students from Malaysia who volunteered in Nepal through AIESEC Rising Nepal project. In that project, we support local entrepreneurs to improve their business and operation. One of the social enterprise that we support is Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes, and that is how we get to know about Tamang community.

The founder of Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes, Miss Shanti, comes from Tamang community. In her venture of creating natural dyes, she empowers the women of Tamang community, by grooming them into dyeing master, so that they could be the breadwinner of their families. Although Miss Shanti has impacted the community in such way, however there are still some issues that remain unsolved in the community, especially after the earthquake that happened in April 2015.

Issues faced by Tamang Community

We identified three issues that need to be addressed to ensure better life of Tamang community, which are earthquake relief, education and livelihood.

Issue 1: Earthquake relief
The workshop of Kakani Himlayan Natural Dyes had been destroyed due to earthquake, and this ended the income sources of 15 families in Tamang community. The reconstruction had been made, however due to insufficient fund, the progress was stunted.

Issue 2: Education
Some of the children in Tamang community could not afford education, or for some that could, they depend on the donations or assistance from others such as support from school to study. Also, we found out that some of these children do not have enough resources for proper education, for example some have problems to buy uniforms and books.

Issue 3: Livelihood
We realized that one of the reason children could not afford education is because there is no proper income sources in the family. In Tamang community, the income sources are not sustainable as there is a lack of job opportunities.

Founding of Amplify to address the issues

Through discussion between our team and Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes, we decided to collect fund to solve these issues. Instead of giving donations to address the issue, we want to sustain the impacts to not only solving problems, but creating new opportunities in the community. That is how the idea of Amplify being founded, to amplify the funding, and create changes that continues to ripple.

To solve the three issues, first, we will collect 100000 Nepalese Rupees (which is equivalent to 919.59 USD), to help Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes in completing the workshop reconstruction and in stabilizing their business. Later on, Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes will repay and contribute the same amount back to Tamang community, by supporting children education and developing skills of caretaker to ensure sustainable livelihood of the family. By the end of the repayment, 12 children will be able to attend school and 7 caretakers will be receiving skill development and start generating own income. After the repayment period, Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes will continue to impact 5 children and 5 caretakers every year, using the same model.

The repayment process will be monitored by Amplify.
The repayment plan can be viewed here: https://goo.gl/3aFbjx
The impacts will be showcased in Amplify Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/amplifyingimpact/

How can you be involved in our movement

Your donations will be contributed not only in earthquake relief for Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes, but at the same time it will be used to support children education and livelihood of the community. In the future, we welcome you to visit the workshop of Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes, the school of Tamang community, or the families of student that receive help, to see and feel the impacts that you have created. Let us know through Amplify if you wish to have these arrangements.

Appreciation

With utmost gratitude, we thank you for your contribution in the funding, few dollars might seem small, but with this small contributions from everyone, it generates huge impacts, to both the economy and education of Nepal. And at last, we would like to appreciate Kakani Himalayan Natural Dyes in being our social partner and main contributor to improve the living of Tamang community.