Helping people help themselves

OK people it’s about time you learnt a little bit about CDRA and how they operate

CDRA stands for Community Development Relief Agency and is the organization we spend most of our time working for here in Nepal. CDRA (pronounced Seedra which is also the name of a delicious small dried fish but I digress) is a small NGO (Non Governmental Organization) based in Banepa. The motto is ‘helping people help themselves’ which is apparent in the projects undertaken by CDRA. The projects tend to be small scale and of immediate benefit to the recipients, such as micro finance, education and school construction. Unlike some large (well huge) international NGO’s and aid agency’s CDRA utilizes local involvement in its projects as much as possible. The benefits of this are twofold, firstly the costs and overheads are kept to a minimum (No cruising round in convoys of the latest Landcruisers for us) and also the locals take ownership of the project and take pride in the results. A good example is for a school build the local village will supply local stone for the construction. The villagers will quarry the stone and provide labour for the building construction. This means the villagers have a sense of ownership of their school, more so than if we plopped a pre fabricated building down and said ‘here you go’. This also means costs are significantly lower by utilizing local resources such as bamboo, wood and stone. It’s probably more environmentally friendly too when you think about it.

CDRA also encourages community involvement in all its projects. This means that locals are exposed to the entire process of the project instead of just the end result and can get ideas for projects of their own.  It is quite gratifying seeing some villages transform from asking for handouts to developing their own plans and completing their own projects. They really are helping themselves.  

CDRA has many projects on the go. All the projects in this blog so far have had help by CDRA in some way. If you would like to make a significant difference to peoples’ lives in a meaningful way please support one of our projects. They can range from $20 for a cataract operation to $50000 for a new high school, (I’ll blog that one soon, it’s a doozy) and everything in between. Full receipts and documentation will be provided for any donation and you will be secure in the knowledge that your money is being utilized in the most efficient way possible.