First Visit to the Project Site i.e. Raksirang-9 VDC, Makwanpur, Nepal

Raksirang-9 Village Development Committee(VDC) lies in Makwanpur district in the Central Development Region of Nepal. Like most of the rural places of Nepal, where proper water supply and sanitation is a major issue, this VDC faces similar issues of improper water supply. From Hetauda, which is the Headquarters of Makwanpur district, we headed to Manahari, situated at about 30 kilometers in the North-West direction. after 1 hour bus ride, we reached Bot Bari, which was our starting destination to reach Raksirang-9 VDC. From Bor Bari, we climbed about 2 hours uphill to reach Tangrang, the first village of Raksirang-9 VDC. Within Raksirang-9 VDC, there are 7 villages, namely:

• Tangrang
• Ranibang
• Chautara
• Hatihal
• Sano Lapur
• Bainkim
• Sachak

The village locals had arranged for our stay in the community church for the next 5 days. With a total of 107 households, equivalent to about 750 population, majority consisted of Chepangs and a minor few were Tamangs. Despite their caste, all of the villagers followed Christianity. They believe with the inhibition of Christianity, practises such as drinking, smoking, fights, theft etc. have significantly declined. Supply of water is a major issue within the village. People claim they have to walk for a minimum of 30 minutes to fetch water for their daily purposes. This is one of the major reason for village children to miss school. We aim to ease this problem they face regularly by bringing water from the source to their houses. Further, we aim to develop Raksirang as an agricultural hub by teaching the techniques of irrigation and agriculture. This will help in the overall upliftment of the VDC.