Katrina Zavalney's Three-Village Project in Nepal
The speaker for our meeting on September 3, 2020 was Katrina Zavalney, a member of the Santa Rosa East Club. Katrina’s topic was her Rotary Grant Project in Nepal. Katrina has a master’s degree in Organizational Development and is the founder and Executive Director of Aranya Solutions. “Aranya” means “abundant forest” in Sanskrit. One of Aranaya’s recent projects is the revitalization of a trio of villages in Nepal. These villages, Dingam, Chipling and Thakani, are in the heart of the Himalayas and are covered in snow for half of the year. They do not cultivate enough food to support themselves. Villagers take jobs out of the area. The people are under-educated and there is a high incidence of alcoholism and gambling.
The project’s goals are to help develop resiliency and self-sufficiency. Aranya works cooperatively on the project with a global entity based in Nepal, the Institute of Cultural Affairs. Dingam was the original subject of the project but they learned that cooperation among the three villages would be a necessity. Each village is at least a 1 ½ days walk from the other. After putting local people together to work on planning and the development of projects, they decided to focus on the shitake mushroom industry. This is a high nutrition – high value crop. They also concluded that weaving was a traditional skill that could be resurrected. One element of economic development is the rule that 10% of all sales of these products goes to the three-village cooperative. Another key focus of Aranya on this project is women’s empowerment and education. Many of the key organizers and developers are women. Aranya also works to develop financial literacy, leadership skills, organizational capacity, and action planning among the locals.
The next step for these villages is the development of a community center, with offices and gathering places. The center will be built in one of these villages using some traditional, and some new, methods. Sandbags will be at the core of the structure, with local bamboo, clay, and rice straw for the walls. The building must be earthquake proof! Other important future projects will be the development of a health center and road improvements.
Aranya has worked on this project with the assistance of the Rotary International Global Grant program. RI provides key insights, including support with best practices, partnership and project management, budgeting, financial reporting, and oversight. The project earned a $35,000 Global Grant from RI and is working on another grant in the coming year. The total funding goal is $100,000 for the next two years.
Katrina, this is an amazing project and your work is going to improve people’s lives for years to come. Thank you for that work and thank you for speaking with us last Thursday. You are amazing!
