Lamjung Skill Development Foundation 06.07.08

A vast number of adolescents and youth of Nepal are out of the school system as they have been left-out or pushed-out of the school for various reasons and often found to be at the center of the vicious cycle as being either the cause or effect of the decade long armed-conflict. As a strategy to work in economic peacebuilding a group of committed professionals with the support from Swiss-Nepal Society (SNS) and DIGA foundation of Switzerland, has established the Lamjung Skill Development Foundation (LSDF) Campus at Gairi, close to Besi Sahar. LSDF in its effort to provide a new life to marginalized youth is committed to provide market based practical oriented high-quality vocational/technical skills to the out-of-school youth so that they can be employed or self-employed after completion of their training. The Campus also aims at being a vehicle for rural reconstruction in the region.
The campus opened its doors in summer 2008 with the two first long-term courses in civil construction and carpentry. Additional trades (electronic and mechanical) will be implemented step by step. Additional to the regular long-term courses, the campus regularly hosts short-term trainings according to the local needs. Among others, SNS-supported trainings for goat rearing, off-season vegetable and citrus fruits were carried out in close co-operation with local partners.

Goal: LSDF will contribute to:

Enhanced productivity and income of skilled human resources

Purpose: LSDF expects:

Community members and out-of-school youth gainfully employed or self-employed with appropriate skills at hand

Outputs: LSDF is committed at:
  1. Generating information on the demand of skilled work force at local and regional level
  2. Developing modular, short and long term curricula for skill training as per the market demand
  3. Producing semi-skilled and skilled human resources in selected fields
  4. Linking the skilled graduates to employment and self-employment at the local, regional and national labor market.
  5. Providing community based short-term courses and technical support for rural reconstruction
Nature of training:
The Campus provides demand based two-years of long-term and several short-term courses.
  1. Long-term:
    2. The long-term training is divided into a number of center based theory and practical courses followed by on-the-job training. They are interwoven in such a way that they spiral together into a complete course that provides sufficient theoretical foundation as well as practical experience with interaction with the market so that the trainee becomes equipped with skills to face the market reality. Students going for the on-the-job training (4 months for each year for the two years course) will be paid for their work, which is negotiated by the Campus with the employer.

  2. Short-term:
    3. Through its partner organization called KARMA, LSDF has provided a number of short term mobile community based training on livelihood development together with technical and material support in the field of indigenous handicrafts, agriculture, apiculture, horticulture and livestock development, collection and processing of herbs and managing small lodges and restaurant. Such courses vary as per need of the market and special requests of the clientele as well as for production orientation, needed for rural reconstruction. The short-term courses in fields like scaffolding, mechanical and plumbing carried out by LSDF, were sponsored by two hydropower projects of Lamjung. These short-term courses are designed in modular form, so the trainees from them can also add up their hours to meet the standards of the long-term courses in the long run. A weeklong short-term course was organized right in the beginning in collaboration with Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln (VSBK) Project in training local people for environmentally friendly building materials as hollow cement blocks. These blocks as well as the locally trained people have been used in the construction of the buildings of the Campus.

Admission process:
LSDF believes that to possess appropriate skills for a decent work is the human right of an individual. However, it is up to him/her to qualify to the level one aspires for. With this philosophy, the LSDF Campus admits trainees who fulfill the following requirements:
  1. Having completed 15 years of age
  2. Fulfill the prerequisite of cognitive competencies needed to be admitted for a given course
  3. Committed to acquire skills by going through rigorous process and rules set up by the Campus
For the long-term courses it recruits youth from the disadvantaged segment of the local society, who for some reasons or other, have not been able to complete ten years of school education. The two years course requires cognition level in Nepali, English and Mathematics of grade 8. However, possessing a school certificate is not a criterion for admission at LSDF. Rather the interested youth, who apply for admission, are given entrance examination to find out if they have sufficient cognitive competencies in these subjects to undertake the course. Those who are found to be deficient in language and/or mathematics are provided with bridge course to fill up the gap. Those who meet the requirements are given aptitude test to be assessed if they do possess the right aptitude for a given trade. Only then they are admitted for a given course. The qualified candidate needs to fill up the forms required by the Campus, which is provided by the Office of Admission. For the short-term courses, LSDF admits trainees meeting its requirements by supporting sponsors to select them. The LSDF trainees come from a mixture of various castes and ethnic groups and majority of them are women.

Financing
The LSDF Gairi Campus is financed by several Nepalese and Swiss stakeholders.

The land for the Campus is provided free by a group of concerned professionals of Enterprise Development Company (EDC), Kathmandu. The construction and running cost for the first five years are substantially financed through DIGA Stiftung, Galgenen. The SNS is facilitating the co-operation between DIGA Stiftung and LSDF and also finances short-term courses and the construction of a canteen.

An NGO operating in Lamjung in collaboration with the VDCs is also sponsoring training of some youth in LSDF long-term courses, whereas certain hydropower projects are sponsoring a few short-term ones.

The Institute for Conflict Management Peace and Development (ICPD), Kathmandu is providing free services for planning, monitoring and related technical backstopping.

In addition to those partners, LSDF is steadily expanding its own income sources. Student’s fees for the log-term courses are important, but even more crucial for the campus’ income generation is the selling of the campus’ services, facilities and products to the Nepali society.

The wages for having worked in on-the-campus student-work scheme and that during the on-the-job training are available for students, which can be used for meeting their expenses including the course fees.
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