HEAD Skill Development Center
HEAD Skill Development Center, A Project By Head Nepal
The Head Skill Development Center provides a range of support services mainly intended for adult people with disabilities and without disabilities who are unable or have difficulty integrating into mainstream society.
The service focuses on capacity building to achieve the best results for the trainees.
The Head Skill Development Center is a newly set up project based on the idea that offering an appropriate learning environment with a wide range of basic to advance training not only to people with disabilities but also to other marginalized groups of society such as women, Dalits, ethnic group, single woman conflict-affected, etc. to improve quality of life and promote community inclusion.
The training may cover a range of capacity building, vocational and educational training, and skill/leadership development courses. The major objective of the Head Skill Development Center is to make the marginalized group of people including people with disabilities more independent so that they can participate as fully as possible in family, community, and society. The Head Skill Development Center provides a range of support services mainly intended for adult people with disabilities and without disabilities who are unable or have difficulty integrating into mainstream society.
These services assist those people to live in a supported community environment with a wide range of vocational/skill-building training and learning opportunities. The service focuses on capacity building to achieve the best results for the trainees. The main emphasis of this center is on skill teaching and support to enable them to become more independent living. The trainer/teacher will encourage and help these people to achieve their potential. The services will include a range of activities and learning processes depending on a person’s feasibility, achievability, what the person is interested in and able to do.
The activities may include:
1. Educational training
- Literacy class
- reading writing in Nepali
- Communication skills
- English language class
- Basic leadership/personality development and management training
- Bookkeeping and basic mathematics training so that they can keep a financial report on their own
- Basic and Intermediate Computer skills training
2. Vocational/skill-building training
- Tailoring, knitting training with modern machines with professional way and business motive
- Farming/animal keeping/animal-husbandry, cottage industry, business, etc.
These kinds of training/support services should be more professional and organized extensively with the expert, specialist, and professionals to advance and secure the trainee’s career in the trained subject. Achieving an independent living and self-sustained life for people with disabilities is the key goal of the Head Skill Development Center.
After having training on the above mentioned vocational and educational training, the beneficiaries will be able to: Achieve economical independent Earn life on their own. Increase their social/cultural inclusion and participation. Integrate as fully as possible in every activity of life in the community as others. Be a contributing/productive member of family, community, society, and nation at large. Develop the quality of life and promote community inclusion. We mainly collaborate with the government of Nepal especially the local body like District Development Committee (DDC), Village Development Committee (VDC, Women and Children Office Humla and potential donors/NGOs and INGOs to take an initiative to provide such support services to the most marginalized/vulnerable group in rural areas like Humla.
What the Head Skill Development Center has Done:
Three Months Tailoring Training for 14 people including 4 people with Disability:
The HEAD Skill Development Center, a project by Head Nepal together with Cottage Industry Development Committee Humla has started three months of tailoring (dressmaking/fashion design) training from 4th of April 2014 in Simikot. As the target group of this training is the most marginalized and vulnerable group of Humli community such as women, Dalit, Ethnic group and people with disability, altogether there are 14 trainees selected and among them, 4 are people with disability. Among the total trainees, 12 trainees are women.
Only two men have been selected and both of them are with disabilities. Most of them are from the ethnic and Dalit community and they belong to the lower class family throughout the Humla district. On Friday 4th of April, the first day of the training, all 14 selected trainees, the trainer Mr. Dhan Singh Damai, the representative from Cottage Industry Development Committee, Mr. Rakesh Kumar Shaha, and Mr. Chhitup and Lokraj from Head Nepal were present in the inaugural session at Head Nepal Office in Simikot.
The training was inaugurated informally. The session began with an individual introduction one after another followed by some words of encouragement and motivation from Mr. Chhitup, Rakesh, and Dan Singh for the trainees. After a while, the trainees were divided into two groups, with 7 trainees in each group. The first group starts their class at 10 AM and ends at 1 PM. Likewise, the second group begins their session at 1 and ends at 4 PM. Later on, the trainer set up two sewing machines by assembling all parts together and he taught the trainees to do the same. All 7 machines were made ready.
The following are the list of the trainees:
- Lachhu Bhandari, Thehe 2, Humla
- Sukaraj Pariyar, Dandaphaya 1 Humla
- Shusil Pariyar, Simikot 3 Humla
- Gahugori Bhandari, Thehe 6 Humla
- Ramala Shahi, Dandaphaya 6 Humla
- Lalita Pariyar, Syanda 4 Humla
- Jasu Rokaya, Simikot 4 Humla
- Pargya Rawal, (Rawat), Simikot 5 Humla
- Gita Rokaya, Simikot 4 Humla
- Naurati Rokaya, Simikot 2 Humla
- Aushi Bohara, Simikot 4 Humla
- Laxmi Devi Shahi, Simikot 9 Humla
- Kali Damai, Raya 5 Humla
- Bharati Shahi, Dandaphaya 5 Humla
This training will be continued for 3 months. The trainees will learn how to set up the machines, using the machine, and designing/preparing locally popular dresses/clothes items.
a series of workshops for government teachers, sighted students, and students with visual impairment:
The Head Skill Development Center collaborating with Hungry Fingers Poland and WWS/Mission East Nepal organized 5 days of different workshops entitled ‘Innovative Resources in Inclusive Education of Learners with Visual Impairment’ in Simikot from the 20th to 24th of February 2014. During the workshop, different three target groups, 31 teachers, 43 sighted children, and 19 students with visual impairment were benefited. The entire workshop was facilitated by Mr. Prof. Boguslaw Marek Ph.D. OBE, The John Paul Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, and who is the representative of Hungry Finger as well. The Head Staff, Chhitup, Resham and Lokraj, and WWS’s representative Gurmu Lama also help during the sessions.
During the 5 days session, varieties of new and latest techniques, methods for teaching visually impaired students especially those blind were discussed during the workshop. We believed that it was very helpful especially for the students with visual impairment and the teachers who teach such students. The workshop also offered training to the participants introducing innovative educational resources which can make teaching more effective and practical. The sessions were focused on tactile graphics which can be used for explaining difficult concepts and for making learners with a severe visual impairment more independent.
As all course books for sighted learners are full of illustrations which are very often omitted from adaptations for blind learners, Mr. Marek presented numbers of special and innovative materials for introducing learners with a visual impairment to tactile drawings, diagrams, maps, tactile books, resources for teaching geometry and for explaining various difficult and abstract concepts, etc.
head skill development center started the first special ict based computer training:
The first and only special ICT-based computer training for students with visual impairment in Nepal has been launched by Head Skill Development Center in Simikot Humla. The training was formally inaugurated on the 26th of August 2013 in an especial ceremony organized by Head Nepal. The chief guest of the ceremony, Mr. Bam Bahadur K. C., the Assistant Chief District Officer inaugurated the training formally by uncovering the curtain on the monitor of all computers that are set up in the class and starting the screen reader and typing some words on a computer with the help of screen reader software.
Head Nepal officially invited the concerned government officers and NGO representatives and media persons ETC. to the program. The Assistant District Education Officer, Mr. Mansingh Bishta, The Women Development Officer, the Children Welfare Officer, ETC., and many NGO representatives attended the ceremony. With the start of the inaugural ceremony, the visually impaired children in Head Vision Home welcomed all the guests with a welcome song, and a blind child, Gorasingh Bohora performed an individual and self-created/composed song in the program. Through the words of the song, he expressed the bitter experience of his past life which made many of the audiences emotional and touched their heart. During the ceremony, one of the partner organizations of Head Nepal, ISIS/IC Foundation distributed a set of tracksuits for each of the kids in Head Vision Home and stationaries and sports materials. The instructor of Head Nepal, Mr. Lokraj Shhahi moderated the program.
The technical coordinator of Head Nepal, Mr. Reshamraj Rokaya assisted Mr. Shahi and he had a chance to explain the work/activities that the organization has done so far. Accordingly, most of the officers and representatives had a chance to have their words in regards to the training. The chief guest, Mr. Bam Bahadur K. C. emphasized the importance of ‘Information, Communication and Technology’ saying that the most essential and biggest property is the skills and knowledge of ICT in the 21st-century world. The Assistant District Education Officer, Mr. Bishta admired the initiation of special ICT training, and the District Education Office is happy to support the program and will always be positive to work together with Head Nepal. All the other speakers of the ceremony appreciated the start of computer training for visually impaired students while accessibility to such opportunities is very much limited even for regular people in Humla! And they also wished a great success of the training! At the end of the program, closing the inaugural ceremony, Mr. Chhitup Lama, the Executive Director of Head Nepal expressed his gratitude/thankfulness for all the guests presented and the individuals/organizations that supported Head Nepal directly and indirectly with different means!!! The special ICT-based computer training was mainly supported by the District Education Office and It is going to be implemented by mutually collaborating with Balmandir Secondary School. The District Education Office donated 4 sets of desktop computers with an Internet connection and a printer and Head Nepal managed another 3 sets. All together 7 sets of computers are being used to train the students.
chicken keeping training and distribution program for persons with disability
On Saturday 1st of June 2013, one-day training on chicken keeping has been successfully organized for different kinds of people with disabilities in Dandaphaya VDC ward No. 8 in Dharapori village. The program was organized and implemented by Head Skill Development Center and financially supported by the Women and Children Office Simikot under the government’s annual program, Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) for people with disabilities.
The target group of the training was people with disabilities in four VDcs, Dandaphaya, Syanda, Khangalgaun, and Hepka. Altogether 20 persons with disabilities five persons from each VDC and some of their assistants were benefited from the training. Among the participants, there are seven persons with visual impairment, seven with hearing impairment, five with physically challenged and one with mental disordered. Some of the elder children of the Head Nepal hostel also participated in the training. The entire training program was managed and coordinated by the Instructor of Head Nepal, Mr. Lokraj Shahi. The training was mainly facilitated by Mr. Bindeshwar Raya, the officer from the Life Stock development office Simikot, and assisted by Mr. Ganga Bahadur Thapa, expertized in Life Stocked Service.
The one-day training was focused on basic knowledge, idea, and skills about chicken keeping. The session started with an introductory program among the organizers, trainers, and the participants and their assistants one by one. Later on, Mr. Lokraj introduced Head Nepal especially the Head Skill Development Center, and its various activities for persons with disabilities in the Humla district. He also explained the purpose of the training. Mr. Bindeshwar and Ganga took up the rest of the day providing the trainees with various information on chicken or hens keeping especially in the Himalayan region. The trainees were equipped with general information and ideas on how to make a chicken coop, the way how and what to feed to different times of chickens/hens, and possible diseases that the chickens can be infected with. At the end of the session, the participants were informed to attend the next part of the program that will be the chickens’ distribution program and be held right a week later on Saturday 8th of June 2013 in Simikot.
On the same day, each trainee will get some pairs of chickens just to start a small business by themselves. Right at 11 AM begun training session was completed at 5 PM and all the trainees got back to their respective villages. As the next part of the program, each of all the 20 participants; people with disabilities received three pairs of chickens from Head Nepal on the 8th of June 2013 in Simikot. It was nothing but meant to be a small venture capital for them to get their business started.
