Final Project Plan

PROJECT TITLE

"Friends of Environment"

MANAGER

Surya Gaire

ABSTRACT

“Friends of Environment” focuses on making difference in the community through wide range of effort initiated by the school children that creates an impact in the community. This project addresses the various problems faced by the local people. The core problem for creation of this project is the lack of awareness on environment and its conservation.  Various causes that are responsible for this problem includes- lack of funds, insufficient information, lack of policy support and governmental will, lack of involvement of children in environmental issues etc. This may create negative impact within the community, country as well as in the whole world. Destruction of environment, conflict at International level, poor resource management etc are the impacts that are visible due to such causes and problem. The ultimate goal of this project is to deliver skill- based awareness and education programs to the school children which encourage positive behavior change about the environment among the people in the community. This project directly or indirectly helps to improve the quality of life of people, maintain population growth, ecosystem conservation and conservation of trees.  

BACKGROUND                              

Nepal is one of the developing countries relying heavily on its forest resources to meet its demand for energy. Rural areas account for about 80% of total energy requirements of the country most of which is for cooking. In developing countries like Nepal, the big majority of the   energy that is needed for cooking purposes comes from biomass (mainly wood and charcoal). This Biomass is used in very inefficient stove and wasting a lot of energy. Deforestation has become threat to Nepal. It is estimated that ten trees are cut down for every one tree planted in the world today. Although, much of the third world, including Nepal, is largely responsible for this rapid deforestation, the whole world suffers. Now only 29% of forest-cover remains. About 87% of domestic energy in Nepal is produced by firewood. Wood is used for cooking and, during winter, also for heating. (WWF)

According to a survey done by Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics, most urban residents’ garbage management as the most important environmental problem in urban areas and leading the influences to rural areas. The high prevalence of respiration related diseases (Chronic bronchitis and others) among women population in Nepal was probably primarily found due to their exposure of smoke while cooking, studies revealed.

25.4% or about 3,636,000 ha of Nepal are forested. Of this 1.2% (43,000 ha) is classified as primary forest, the most biodiversity and carbon-dense form of forest. Nepal had 43,000 ha of planted forest. Change in Forest Cover: Between 1990 and 2010, Nepal lost an average of 59,050 ha or 1.23% per year. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Nepal lost 24.5% of its forest cover or around 1,181,000 ha.
(FAO)

Environmental issues are important for today's youth and this project draws the interest of school children in building the environment through their effort to change the behavior of community people. 

PROJECT AIM

Community will get rid of economic problem and will be laden with skill based employment (hands on work). To make community aware about the environment and the impact it creates.

OBJECTIVES

1.    To form Eco-clubs in 5 schools within the community within 2011.

2.    To involve 100 Eco-clubs students in open orientation program in schools and public areas within 2011.

3.    To implement 10 campaigns within the community within 2011 to achieve positive behavior change among students and community people.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Finance coordinator will be responsible for management of finances for the project. The basic principles adopted for managing the funds for the project are:

• Micro finances
• Bank account deposition
• New member fees
• Ledger entries for debits and credits.

In order to know the effectiveness of the working team a monitoring committee will be formed followed by the supervision by the project manager. This helps to keep the whole team stable from grassroots level to the top.

WORK PLAN/ PROJECT ACTIVITIES:

Methodology:

Study area will be the Sangla V.D.C, one of the rural communities in Nepal. The study includes five different schools of Sangla V.D.C. The group of students will be selected from each school in order to form eco-clubs with the function of volunteering the various activities of the project. In each school the information will be disseminated by the selected volunteers. On the basis of timeline all the activities will be conducted by the initiation of those students. 

Timeline:

Activity	Period/Duration	Expected Outcome	Indicators of achievement	Partners/Stakeholders involve	Cost in USA $	Responsible
open-orientation programmes	1 week	Making an issue	People start talking about environment	NGOs and CBOs. Namely: Youth Coordination Center (YCC), Volunteer Aid Nepal (VAN), JCYCN etc	751	Youth Coordination Center
dramas	1 week	Aware people about environment	Decrease in deforestation.		174	Student management group
rallies	1 week	Advocacy in the community	Increase sanitation level.		731	Student management group
plantation	2 weeks	Importance of trees	Stop deforestation and start of forestation.		840	VAN
School Awareness program	2 weeks	Educate students about environmental issues	Contribute something positive for environment		700	JCYCN
Speech competition	1 week	Increase interest of students	Schools conducting competitions and programs.		206	Local School

Description of Activities:

1. Open Orientation Program:

This program helps to introduce what our project is, including its objectives, goals and aims. During this program all the necessary information regarding our project details will be explained to the community people. The orientation program also includes that participation of school students as they are the target beneficiaries of this project. As far as possible, the volunteers for the project will be selected in this program. Orientation program will be conducted in different schools for a week. Eco-clubs in each school will be formed involving the group of students. 

2. Dramas:

Dramas will be conducted by selected volunteers (Eco-club students) from each school. The duration for conducting dramas is a weekly. The interested students will also be given chance for conduction of this role play. The dramas will be conducted on environmental issues to aware general community people about the destruction of forest and polluting environment. 

3. Rallies:

The next activity will be conduction of rallies in different places within the community. At least 50 students from each school will be participating in the rally. This will take a week-long.

4. Plantation:

The plantation program will be inaugurated by V.D.C officer of the particular village. The student will be taught about the importance of trees in our daily life and the people will be involved in the activities so that they will stop activities like deforestation. Volunteers will be taking lead role in this program. All together 100 trees will be planted each week.  This will take two weeks for the completion of the activity. 

5. School Awareness Program:

All the students in each school present in the community will be taught about the environmental issues. They will be provided knowledge regarding importance of trees, Personal and environmental sanitation and will be encouraged to teach their parents not to cut the tree. Monthly plantation, sanitation and hygiene activities will be planned to carry out further.

6. Speech Competition:

Inter-school speech competition will be conducted as a last phase of activity. All the interested students will be enlisted and selected for the final speech. The main subject of speech competition will be related to any one topic of environment. First, Second and Third winners will be awarded. Schools will also be encouraged to conduct such programs in the upcoming days. 

 Target Beneficiaries:

The target beneficiaries of the project were rural community people of Sangla districts of Nepal who are deprived form various environmental awareness.

Stakeholders:

• Development Partners
• NGOs/INGOs (Within and Outside the community)
• Socially responsible investment advocates
• Young members from schools
• Indirect stakeholders who have similar objectives like ours.
• Community people
• Environmental educators
• Schools

Volunteers:

Volunteers will be selected from the school. 1-3 volunteer youths will be participating from outside the community for the monitoring of the activities.

MONITORING AN D EVALUATION:

Indicators of Achievement:

Attitudes demonstrated by the student in relation to a corresponding prescribed learning outcome.

Students’ knowledge regarding the environment will be increased.

The life of the community people will be easier.

Start forestation.

The quality of life of people.

Tools and techniques for gathering baseline information and evidence for indicators

Tools: Questionnaire, evaluation matrices, timeline

Techniques: Interviews, meetings, feedbacks.

Method for analyzing information

The analysis of information will be done in both qualitative and quantitative methods. All the information obtained from discussions, recommendations and meeting will be used for improvement of project. Some potential issues we are already aware of and need to look out for include:

• The people involved in deforestation.
• They don’t have hands on income generation activities.
• Schools children are not aware about environment. 

Reporting of project outcomes and learning

The reporting of the final project will be done with the stakeholders. All the team members and stakeholders will share the final project and submit it to the donor for funding. The project secretary is responsible for the reporting. Stakeholders should be communicated about the next step to be done. The evaluation should be able to provide appropriate outcome. The information gained by me will be disseminated to the team members, volunteers and stakeholders for addition of each view to bring out the quality project.

BUDGET

Project Activity	Unit/Quantity	Unit Cost in USA $	Total in USA $
Open orientation program	1 Banner	1*6	6
	20 phamplates	20*1	20
	50 food and drinks for participants each day	50*7*2	700
	5 T-shirts for volunteers	5*5	25
dramas	6 dress of actors (Hiring) each day	6*7*2	84
	1 banner	1*6	6
	6 foods and drinks for participants each day	6*2*7	84
rallies	1 Banner	1*6	6
	25 cardboards	25*1	25
	50 Snacks each day	50*7*2	700
plantation	200 plants	200*4	800
	5 Shovel	5*7	35
	5 Sacks	5*1	5
School Awareness program	3 experts	3*50	150
	50 notebooks each alternate day	50*1*7	350
	50 pens  each alternate day	50*0.5*7	175
	25 posters	25*1	25
Speech competition	1 music system hiring	1*100	100
	1 Banner	1*6	6
	5 snacks for judge each day	5*7*2	70
	3 gifts for winners	3*10	30
Sub-Total			$3402
Printing, Photocopy, stationary, Charts, scanning,  Certificates,bags	Miscellaneous	200	200
Grand Total			$3602

** Some amount of budgets are donated by local partner organizations.