Good Neighbors International (GNI) is an international development and humanitarian organization that empowers people in 40 countries across the world through socioeconomic development activities. Employing an integrated child-centered community development approach, Good Neighbors International (GNI) has been working in Nepal since 2002 for improving the lives of poor people, especially children through child protection, education, income generation, health services, water, sanitation and hygiene, disaster risk reduction/climate change adaptation, and advocacy programs. GNI Nepal has child rights and child protection programs in 22 districts for empowering children to make them capable of claiming their rights and promote their holistic development.

Empowering people, transforming communities

Good Neighbors exists to make the world a place without hunger, where people live together in harmony. We respect the human rights of our neighbors suffering from poverty, disasters and oppression, and help them to be self-reliant and have hope.

Achievements of the past five years

Children in Nepal are at risk of child labor, child marriage, trafficking, malnutrition, and other ills.  GNI Nepal's child protection program is based on the rights-based approach, and underpinned by the principles of nondiscrimination, respect for the views of the child, and zero tolerance of child exploitation and abuse. Raising awareness of the right holders (children) so that they can claim their rights and assisting duty bearers (families, communities, and state) to deliver them is GNI Nepal's top priority. GNI Nepal works with children, students, child clubs, local governments, grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations, networks, and government line agencies for promoting child rights and child protection.

GNI Nepal actively engages in strengthening and mobilizing child protection mechanism; capacity development of and sensitization of stakeholders; promoting child participation and capacitate for claiming their right; and child case management. Under the children-for-children approach, GNI Nepal forms/reforms school-based child clubs, provides them logistic support, and builds their capacity on child rights and child protection, leadership and grassroots advocacy, wall-magazine publication, and child club management. Complementing it, child protection committees and grassroots child protection mechanisms are formed and mobilized.

Adolescents take part in an awareness-raising deuda event organized with GNI Nepal's support

Working together with children, child clubs, schools, and local governments, GNI Nepal sensitizes and promotes participation of  children  so that they are able to deal with child protection issues at home,  school, and  in their community. Along with capacity development, GNI Nepal helps local governments to formulate and implement child protection policies that contribute to institutionalize and make grassroots child protection systems sustainable.

In the past five years, a combined effort of duty bearers (government agencies, community, school, family, civil society), right holders (children, adolescents) and GNI Nepal has resulted in:

1. 330 child clubs formed/reformed and were empowered on CRC and other child rights protocols. 

2. 116 child clubs prepared action plans for fighting against child rights violations and conducted progress-monitoring meetings.

3. 236 child clubs were oriented on Child Friendly Local Governance (122) and DRR (114).

4. 2,938 child club members were empowered with leadership training, life skills and self-protection training.

5. 13,762 children, 3,000 community members and 1,275 community-level stakeholders were sensitized/trained on CRC; against early child marriage, child trafficking and child sexual abuse and child protection issues.

6. 2,250 children and grassroots stakeholders participated 40 grassroots and two national-level Balkachaharis (stakeholder dialogues).

7. 5,336 child club members participated in co-curricular activities organized with support from GNI Nepal.

8. 160 child clubs used complaint boxes to uncover and solve problems and issues concerning their counterparts.

9. 162 child clubs regularized discussions on child protection issues.

10. 86 child clubs published monthly wall-magazines.

11. 78 child protection committees formed/reformed at different municipal, rural municipal as well as school level and sensitized on child rights.

12. 76 child marriages about-to-happen faced disruption attempts from child clubs.

13. 6 local governments supported to formulate child marriage elimination strategies.

14. 350,000 people reached weekly through radio drama against child marriage.

15. Child Helpline - 1098 in Bajura is in operation since 2018.

Membres of Sunadevi Child Club participate in a child protection training

Child club curbs child marriage

In June, Nanda Saud (name changed) was all set to marry‒off his underage daughter. Members of Sunadevi Child  Club  came  to  know  about  it  and  immediately informed the  police,  the  Ward  Chairperson and gathered a large number of children, and marched straight into the marriage ceremony.

At first, Nanda thought that the children were there to help.  But  when  they  asked  the  age  of  bride-to-be and  groom, he was left searching for  words, and  visibly nervous.  He knew that child marriage had been outlawed in Nepal.  It  was  a  criminal  offence,  and  he  could  go  to  jail for it.

Meanwhile  he  was  thinking,  “invitees  and  these  pesky children  would  eat,  drink,  enjoy  the  feast,  and  leave”. Never in a million years, he had imagined that he would have to call off the marriage.

In 2019, Sunadevi Child Club succeeded in stopping six child marriages.  The  club  has  also  filed  two  cases  of  “child elopement” with the Child Protection  Committee  and Area Police Station.

We assisted  Sunadevi  Child  Club’s reformation at  the  start of academic  session  2076  (April  2019)  and provided  them logistic  support  and  training.  Prior to that, the club’s work was limited to a few school events. 

“GNI Nepal-provided trainings have instilled determination in the club members for curbing child marriage in Ladagada”, notes Ward Chairperson, Lal Bahadur Kadayat.Child activists express their solidarity against child marriage in the national-level stakeholder dialogue held in Kathmandu 

These adolescent activists are working vigorously to spread awareness against child marriage among their friends and neighboring communities, which the Ladagada Rural Municipality also aims to completely curb within the next three years.

A grave risk for adolescent children in the districts GNI Nepal works is child marriage. Since 2017, GNI Nepal has been raising awareness, building capacity, and mobilizing local level child protection related institutions in an effort to ending the vice of child and early marriages in Nepal.

Stakeholder dialogue against child marriage

Since 2018, GNI Nepal has been organizing stakeholder dialogues  on  the issues  of  children  in Darchula,  Bajura,  Doti, Kailali,  Humla,  Mugu, Bardiya, Myagdi,  Parbat, Kaski,  Gorkha, Kathmandu,  and  Lalitpur districts  of  Bagmati  ,  Gandaki  ,  Karnali , and Sudurpaschim Provinces. These stakeholder dialogues are called Balkachahari. Children and grassroots stakeholders participate in municipal, provincial and national-level Balkachaharis. Children, students, child club members, teachers, parents, elected officials, local and provincial government authorities, I/NGO representatives dialog and discuss ways to combat child marriage.

Discussants have been highlighting poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, traditional social norms, culture, and practices, spread of social media, weak enforcement of laws, and lack of awareness as major contributors to the scourge of child marriage in their communities. Participating children have asked thought-provoking questions to local government representatives, police personnel, child rights activists, political leaders, and stakeholders such as:

• Why are some political leaders reluctant to speak against child marriages happening in their constituencies? Rather they participate in such marriages and enjoy the feast without any shame?

• What measures/plans have been adopted by the local governments for mitigating child marriage?

• What plans rural municipalities have for strengthening the capacity of child-clubs and child protection committees?

• Why cases against child marriage are not allowed to be registered at the police offices?

• What punitive measures/legislation is in place for penalizing child sexual offenders?

• How and where the funds earmarked for child sector get spent?

Prominent personalities working for child rights and child protection take part in a panel discussion at national-level balkachhahari held in Kathmandu

Even after decades of effort, campaigning, and action, millions of children in Nepal are deprived of their fundamental rights to education, nutrition, self-determination, and health care. Apart from persistent issues of child marriage, sexual abuse, child labor, and neglect, children in Nepal are at risk from new forms of online abuse, bullying, predation, etc.

In Nepal, 32.8 percent females and 9 percent males are married before the age of 18 (Nepal Multiple indicator cluster survey 2019).  Child marriage is not only a violation of a number of rights of children outlined in CRC, but it also has severe implications for the child’s health, particularly the child bride. Child labor is also a major protection issue in Nepal. An estimated 286,000 children under the age of 17 are involved in waged labor (Nepal Labour Force Survey Report 2017/18). Child labor deprives the children of their rights to have education and health care services and hinders their physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and social development. Children because of their age and limited physical development are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. 

Against this backdrop of persistent and emerging child protection issues, in the coming five years, GNI Nepal aims at:

I) Strengthening child protection system at the local level  

1. Mapping of child protection committees 

2. Formation/re-formation of child protection committees 

3. Training for child protection actors, and local government officials 

4. Strengthening child case reporting mechanism  

5. Research/assess child right issues  

6. Policy/guideline formulation and implementing them at the local government level 

II) Sensitizing children for making them capable of claiming their rights

1. Formation/re-activation of child clubs and networks 

2. Capacity development of child clubs and networks 

3. Organization of awareness-raising/social action events through child clubs 

4. Life skills training for children 

5. Complaint handling mechanism establishment and operation 

6. Capacity development of children on complaint handling mechanism operation

Local government officials in Doti endorse child marriage elimination strategy at a public event 

III) Promoting preventive and responsive support systems at household and societal levels 

1. Community awareness-raising campaigns 

2. Training for parents, and community members on child rights 

3. Research/studies on child protection issues 

4. Advocacy/social dialogue events

5. Immediate response for needy children and their families 

6. Support to run Child Helpline 1098