See what we will accomplish in 2018 and beyond:
Beneficiaries: 8,500 children
Objective: To give children in isolated rural communities access to quality education and prevent school dropout, especially for girls.
Strategy: Increase access and improve learning conditions for children in remote villages while engaging the entire community in education.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Build an elementary school in the remote Taplejung District (Nepal)
– Support 6 new schools (Nepal)
– Recruit additional teachers for government schools (India and Nepal)
– Distribute desks and school supplies to government schools (Nepal and India)
– Provide support to 100 additional preschools (India)
– Launch an early childhood development initiative in schools (Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 97,000 people
Objective: To save lives and enable marginalized people to live in dignity and in good health.
Strategy: To provide vulnerable and impoverished populations free and comprehensive medical care.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Complete the construction and open a new medical clinic in Jharkhand (India)
– Bring mobile clinics to remote villages and slums (Nepal and India)
– Operate Shechen Medical Clinics in Kathmandu (Nepal), Bodhgaya, and Hata (India)
– Provide hospice care for the elderly (Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 66,550 people
Objective: Prevent diseases, disabilities, and deaths caused by lack of information and poor living conditions in villages.
Strategy: Inform and train villagers on proper nutrition, first aid, and hygiene practices, with a special focus on women and girls.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Organize intensive first-aid and first responder training (Nepal)
– Implement nutrition awareness campaigns (Nepal and India)
– Provide information and screening camps for uterine prolapse (Nepal)
– Create advocacy campaigns on women’s health and hygiene (India and Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 39,000 people
Objective: Increase food security in villages and educate people on the sustainable use of natural resources.
Strategy: Support and encourage the development of local, self-sufficient, and environmentally friendly agriculture in remote villages.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Offer micro loans (0%) to support opportunities for villagers (Nepal)
– Plant organic vegetable kitchen gardens (India and Nepal)
– Distribute seeds and organic seedlings (India and Nepal)
– Create and manage local nurseries (India and Nepal)
– Provide training, particularly to women, on how to cultivate a vegetable garden, manage water resources, produce fertilizers and organic pesticides, and raise farm animals (India and Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 3,000 people (600 families)
Objective: Bring solar electricity to remote villages to improve living conditions.
Strategy: Train village women to install solar lighting systems in rural communities in their region.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Train an additional 12 villagers in solar engineering (Nepal)
– Install 600 solar lighting systems (Nepal)
– Open six workshops for assembly, maintenance, and repair of equipment (Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 22,500 people
Objective: To improve the living conditions and strengthen the resilience of communities, without creating dependence on external assistance.
Strategy: Design projects and development strategies that benefit the whole community and encourage the active participation of all villagers.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Expand our small money, BIG CHANGE program to villages in the state of Jharkhand (India)
– Provide training in emergency relief that will create a task force within communities to deal with natural disasters. (Nepal)
– Help prevent human trafficking in villages (Nepal)
– Strengthen villagers’ involvement in project management and monitoring (India and Nepal)
Beneficiaries: 3,000 women
Objective: To promote the economic empowerment of rural women and enable them to become agents of change in their community.
Strategy: Provide rural women with access to basic education, training, and job opportunities.
Main Activities in 2018:
– Train an additional 10 taxi-rickshaws drivers (India)
– Provide literacy courses for villagers (India and Nepal)
– Organize entrepreneur training for women (India)
– Support the creation of local small businesses (India and Nepal)
– Train 12 new solar technicians (Nepal)
Together in 2018 we will extend the circle of compassion to over 250,000 people and create a more equal, just, and happy world.
December 5 2019
Twenty years ago, Matthieu Ricard set out to build a better world for the people of the Himalayan region through the founding of Karuna-Shechen. Working in remote and underserved villages, made poss...
December 5 2019
20 years ago, Matthieu Ricard decided to use his share of the proceeds from his best-selling book The Monk and the Philosopher to undertake humanitarian projects in the Himalayan region. Inspired ...
December 4 2019
“At Karuna-Shechen, we believe that compassion not only helps us to benefit others, but it is also the most satisfying way to live.” ~Matthieu Ricard . Since Karuna-Shechen began in 2000, we ...
November 28 2019
For #GivingTuesday, Matthieu Ricard and Karuna-Shechen invites you to cultivate altruism and give back, so to create change across the globe. As we head into our 20th year, Karuna-Shechen is pos...
November 15 2019
Karuna-Shechen’s projects are developed to serve the needs of villagers and communities in remote and under-served areas of Nepal, India, and Tibet. While we gauge success based on the number of peo...
