Education is a fundamental human right: Every child in every country is entitled to it. Education helps to develop a successful and productive future and influences generations to come. Basic education helps children with the knowledge and skills they need to adopt healthy lifestyles and to take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making in their transition to adulthood. In Kathmandu there are a lot of children who do not go to school. Therefore SOUP supports formal and non-formal educational activities.

Formal Education

SOUP is providing scholarship to children of Urban Poor Communities since 1996. SOUP helps children from poor families in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Kirtipurby providing Scholarships to support their human rights for education. In Nepal, children get Scholarship free of access but an extra amount has to be paid for school materials, the uniform and extra activities. This amount must be paid once a year and the average cost is 5.000 NPR ($51). This is why there are still a lot of children from poor families who don’t get basic education. Therefore SOUP provides Scholarship from class 1 to 10.

The children are being selected with the collaboration of community clubs and other groups of respected areas because local people knowmore about the children. To monitor the children SOUP organize meetings with the school teachers and principals to discuss students’ performance and also to improve their educational capabilities.

At present 117 students are getting scholarships with the support of SOUP. Many students have submitted the application for scholarship and SOUP is selecting morestudents from poor communities.

Non-Formal Education

SOUP provides non-formal education (NFE) for school going aged children since 2006. The non-formal education is for those children who have never had a formal education and children who have dropped out of a formal education. Most of the children are from poor migrant families. In these families mothers go to work early in the morning to late evenings. Their income is very low and can cover the room rent and feeding the family. There is no money to enroll the children in basis education. Therefore SOUP developed the NFE class: a school preparation class for one year to teach the children the basics they need to enroll in the formal education. After completing one year they are transferred to the government school according to their intellectual capacity. If the family can still not afford to enroll the children to school SOUP will give financial support. Altogether 117 children were transferred to a government school.

There are three child centers established by SOUP: Kalilmati, Bansighat and Jadibudi. NFE are running daily for five hours from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm except on Saturdays and public holidays. NFE class gives knowledge about English, Math, Nepali, Science and Social studies. The children are assembled by door to door visits and when families bring their children themselves to the centers. Altogether 355 school aged children get opportunities for education since 2006 by SOUP’s NFE classes.

• 

• 

•