Pipal Tree’s local implementing partner in Nepal, the NGO Mithila Wildlife Trust (MWT), is currently rolling out an original Community Learning Centre (CLC) education model in Madhesh Province in the south of the country. The CLC acts both as an entry point to mainstream education for children from the ‘Dalit’ (‘Untouchable’) community and other marginalised ethnic groups and castes and a means of helping them stay in education through extra tuition.

This programme first began in 2012 when MWT was newly founded in Dhanusha District, one of Madhesh Province’s eight Districts. The Founder, Dev Narayan Mandal, combines a passion for conservation with a desire for social upliftment of the poorest people from within his parent community. He knew that many children from the ‘Musahar’ (‘Rat-eater’) community in particular were not attending school. Instead, they were spending a great deal of their time in the forests hunting wildlife. He determined to address both issues by setting up his first CLC as a way of redirecting their energies into a constructive future.

That first CLC involved just 18 children, being taught in the open air in the village of Dhanushadham. Their tutors were two students who had just passed Class 10 (GCSE equivalent) and who Dev encouraged to volunteer their services. By 2019 the number of pupils had risen to 300.

The project took a major step forward following the visit of Philip Holmes, Founder of Pipal Tree, to the village in 2020. By this stage the CLC had moved into a very small building but that was very dark and just not fit to meet the demand. Philip then approached the McGough Foundation who provided grant funding for a new build at a nearby site. This project was completed and Gemma McGough and her son Finn visited the facility in 2022 where they distributed books and stationery. See below:

Demand continued to grow, such that this facility almost became a victim of its own success. Classes had to be conducted in shifts to cater for an ever-growing attendance. The situation was alleviated somewhat by a local politician being inspired to set up his own CLC in a nearby village. This meant that 72 children from that village who had been coming to our centre could now attend this new facility.

In 2024/2025 we completed the building of a second CLC at Dhanushadham to alleviate the pressure on the first building. This has been done using an innovative design that we have used at the Kamala River Basin area. Essentially the building is more appropriate to the needs of a changing climate (temperatures on the southern plains are soaring) and is more environmentally friendly. The features are:

• The building has been constructed after raising the land so that it will not be susceptible to flooding (a growing threat)
• There is covered outside space to allow teaching outdoors when the temperature is high
• A raised roof to allow circulation of air
• The use of eco-bricks which are made by cold compression of cement with sand/earth rather than these being kiln-fired

The original building is now attended by 80 children twice a day. The new building by 90 children twice a day. Prior to the new building being built, pupils had been visiting the old building only once per day in two shifts.

It is unheard of for 100% of Musahar children to be attending community school as is the case in Dhanushadham and this is only possible because of the CLC support. This outcome has attracted considerable interest in the local media and we can hope that this is emulated by other organisations.

At the time of writing, we are building a new CLC near to the Kamala River, further to the east and another in Sarlahi District, funded by the German Foundation ‘Himalaya Friends’. We will be fundraising for more building projects through a forthcoming summer Big Give.

Congratulations, as ever, to Dev and his team at Mithila Wildlife Trust and thanks to Gemma and all our other donors for supporting our high-impact education projects in south Nepal.