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Build up Nepal


Build up Nepal

Build up Nepal is on a mission to break the vicious poverty cycle in rural Nepal through safe houses and long-term jobs for poor families. This is important because millions of families in rural Nepal live in deep poverty and are forced to migrate from their villages due to lack of jobs, housing, and economic development. The construction industry in Nepal are growing rapidly, presenting a unique opportunity to create jobs for poor families. But the conventional fired brick industry is responsible for poor working conditions, child labor and 37% of CO2 emissions from combustion in Nepal.

Build up Nepal’s solution - innovative micro-enterprise model combining two integrated solutions to overcome challenges faced by rural communities:

1) Low-cost, eco-friendly technology, safe housing for poor families

Build up Nepal specializes in CSEB Compressed Stabilized Earth Bricks, a recognized disaster resilient technology that uses local soil and sand with just 10% cement to produce bricks. Our off-grid machines are uniquely effective in rural areas, operating without fuel or electricity, reducing the cost of a house by 25% - making the dream of a safe house genuinely affordable for poor and low-income families.

2) Innovative micro-enterprise model, creating jobs for poor families

Build up Nepal recruits rural entrepreneurs and community groups to start micro construction enterprises. They invest their own money, hard work, sweat and tears, securing a strong incentive to build, sustain and grow over the long-term. We provide them with low-cost machines, training, and support to ignite each enterprise as a sustainable economic engine within poor communities.

To date, Build up Nepal has trained 287 entrepreneurs and communities to build 6009 houses, creating 2896 jobs. Building a house is the biggest investment a poor family will ever make. A cost reduction of 25% often means the difference of being able to build a 3-room house instead of 2-rooms for a family of eight, or the ability to build a house at all… 

Our experience shows that most of the jobs in the enterprises are held by poor people without stable income. Most jobs are held by disadvantaged groups and youth including 30% women. Average income for a CSEB brickmaker trained by us is $6-7 per day, a big step towards a life without poverty. By 2025 we aim to support 600 micro-enterprises to build 25,000 houses, creating 6600 jobs in poor, rural villages – where it is needed the most.

Project Information 

Key impact metrics for Build up Nepal:

1)            Houses built

2)            Jobs created

3)            Nr of enterprises established and sustaining long-term

4)            Tonnes of CO2 emissions saved

Visualizing the impact data will make it possible for Build up Nepal to communicate their impact to key stakeholders including communities and government in Nepal and funders. It will also help elevate the conversation about safe, hygienic housing in rural areas and the importance of prioritizing last mile infrastructure in development plans.

Call-to-Action Help solve the problem of sub-standard, unsafe housing and poverty in rural Nepal by creating some awesome visualizations of Build up Nepal’s data and share it with your network.

Audience Communities, government partners, funders, the general public

Use of Data Visualization Website, social media, annual reports, grant applications, other communications

Dataset: Link to Google Drive

Extra data: Refer to (Build up Nepal - Extra data) Word doc in Google Drive

Project live: 9 January

Deadline to submit: 06 February 2022

How to participate

  • Sign up as a volunteer, if you haven’t already.

  • Join Viz for Social Good Slack and project channel #02_project-discussion

  • Submit your visualization to  https://forms.gle/aajR2n1zz17PZ7Zj9

  • Use social media tags @BuildupNepal, @VizFSG, #vizforsocialgood

  • Attend the live virtual event on 11 Feb 2022 12 Noon CET - Register on Eventbrite