Connecting Mountain'S People
We believe that it is paramount to keep the people of Solu ^ Khumbu , Nepal within their environment and therefore provide them with health & education conditions which are entitling them to prosper in this environment. This means, making sure that skills are mirroring the demand of the region , and that appropriate training is provided to create these business opportunities.
It is about changing lives by providing the right to access education, jobs and medical care without having to move out to the capital.
To this regard, we believe that similar pattern has applied ( or still is valid) in other mountain areas, including the most developed like France, Europe, US, although drivers might be different. Yet sharing similar paradigm, shall allow good practices to be applied and we deem to engage our compatriots to join us in our efforts to make a difference in Nepal.
Mountain people do love Nepal and Solu Khumbu for the fantastic scenery and tremendous trekking paths and summits to be climbed; we want to reinforce the connection with the inhabitants of these valleys too.
Working with our partners
We equip our partners with the means to encourage local management and participation in all the programmes and projects, and local ownership. This model is very successful and ensures equitable partnerships. We also adopt a ‘start small, think big’ mentality which allows projects to progress organically over a long period, and this does generate a high level of trust and shared accountability.
Eco-responsibility
We take good care at ensuring that our projects have the smallest carbon footprint as possible , by using local materials and manpower, and making sure that all rubbish and left overs are duly collected and recycled.
We aim at keeping this as a priority as we need to protect the environment we are interacting in.
Further projects may have positive impact as they could include conservation aspects and/or reforestation .
Proper funding plan
Solu^ Cham is focused on spending in the right ways, on the right things, and in the right places.
Getting the relationship between the charity and the beneficiary right is critical, and a lot of time is spent assessing the consequences of our actions using realistic frames of reference and establishing an agreement of funding with aims and reporting.
We use a system of online budgets and payment spreadsheets for everyone to see and use, and at least two of the French Members are in continual contact with the operations in-country to ensure that the funding process is monitored throughout. All payments from Solu ^ Cham France and Nepal are receipted and accounted for.
Having said that, money is only ever part of the solution, especially when children are involved, and we work hard to make sure that other values are instilled into the oy spirit such as compassion and of course equality.
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Rights based approach
Rights are usually expressed in legal terminology; at Solu ^ Cham we want to ensure that above all compassion and the need to be loved and respected is at the heart of our work. We adopt the ‘rights based approach’ to social development, and we uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development which states that: “The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realised.”
Our principles are that:
Human rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away from someone or voluntarily given up.
Everyone is entitled to their rights regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property ownership, caste, birth or other status.
The right to education affects the right to work and the right to good health, and vice versa. This helps us to link the root causes of problems to the symptoms of the problem.
We accept our obligation as ‘duty bearers’ to deliver rights to our beneficiaries and the responsibility for the impact it has on people’s lives.
We co-operate by sharing information with other duty bearers, undertaking transparent processes and hearing people’s views.
We accept our role to be driven by our obligation to protect, respect and fulfil the rights of people and to be accountable to those people in this regard.
We don’t regard development and the realisation of human rights as separate things; development is part of the process of fulfilling human rights.
To this regard, we believe that similar pattern has applied ( or still is valid) in other mountain areas, including the most developed like France, Europe, US, although drivers might be different. Yet sharing similar paradigm, shall allow good practices to be applied and we deem to engage our compatriots to join us in our efforts to make a difference in Nepal.
Mountain people do love Nepal and Solu Khumbu for the fantastic scenery and tremendous trekking paths and summits to be climbed; we want to reinforce the connection with the inhabitants of these valleys too.
Capacity Building
Our strapline claims to change lives and we try very hard to ensure our work is not misunderstood and has a positive long-term impact on the beneficiaries. To ensure this happens we employ people with a wide range of skills. Our main funding stream is for teachers, medical personnel, counsellors and social workers who teach life skills and act as mentors to young people and their families.
We take young people through all levels of education so that the outcome is a rounded person with a vocation in all sorts of professions, from accountancy to agricultural management. Yet we believe thatit is critical to provide skills and education mirroring the economic needs of the region the people are living in.
Capacity building is therefore essential to our success, as we help people become the architects of their own success through education and training.
Social enterprises
We view our capital projects as investments in the community, or seed capital for social enterprises which enable people to break out of poverty through business and benefit their community. This approach builds self-esteem and is culturally acceptable.
Social enterprise is a driving force for income and progress and increased quality of life in the areas where we work, and our funding helps to achieve this in a way that is consistent with the values of the people that live there.
We work with the local Government authorities and offer our assistance in the ‘bigger picture’. Villagers and communities make a significant commitment to the project, which might be in the form of land or labour, but ultimately our work contributes to a national aim which avoids the pitfall of building a ‘white elephant’ which fails because of lack of collaboration and understanding.
Sustainable Development Goals
Moving a mountain takes a lot of time and effort by a lot of people all working together. Changing people’s attitudes towards development in terms of the future of the world sounds fanciful and probably impractical, but if everyone could contribute equally to a consensus of opinion then history shows that great things
Value for Money
Our work is dedicated to the goal of reducing poverty, enhancing education & health , and keeping the people of the mountains of Solu Khumbu in their environment and we aim to deliver value for money in everything we do on behalf of our donors. We are determined to ensure that every euro we spend has the biggest possible impact on the ground.
Value for money (VFM) is about striking the best balance between the “three E’s” − economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and this is what we aim to achieve with all the money we spend on behalf of our beneficiaries and also our donors. We think about using our resources well and we are very careful in projecting figures over a long period of time so that we never have to cancel any of our programmes. Since our ethos is all about long term sustainable development we try to engage our donors in this way of thinking, rather than short-term-ist solutions.
We employ a rigorous process before every planned expenditure. The question of what the funds are supposed to achieve is as important as the amount spent, and we want to ensure that any financial assistance is valid and managed well, and that those we put in charge of development projects are always seeking to make it work better. We are also very careful at keeping administrative & travel costs at their lowest possible level.
We don’t monetize everything and apply a cost-benefit analysis to every expenditure. The quality of the outcomes is fundamental to understanding whether something is providing value, so we are not always looking for the cheapest option or the biggest cost saving. However we do want to reduce inefficiencies in how aid is managed so that it can achieve good development results.
The reality is that assessing value for money is not easy in a development context, partly because of getting reliable good quality data in some areas, and partly because there is a lack of consensus on value for money for whom, of what and from whose perspective. Our belief is that by properly working together with all our stakeholders and making collaborative decisions, we are doing our best to ensure that all of the money in Solu ^ Cham is well spent.
OUR CAUSES
Behind each project carried by Solucham, there are strong causes to which you can choose to belong by supporting them.
Supporting our volunteers
When we start corresponding with people about their trip we aim to make sure the group works well together and our and our partner staff are well experienced in managing all types of people and keeping everyone happy and satisfied. Nobody has to feel anonymous .
Many of our trips are scheduled for groups, but we provide just as many trips for private groups who have preferences for dates or itineraries.
Solu ^ Cham would take care of all the travel expenses and organization of trips for all volunteers ; this would include air tickets ( international & domestic), as well as local transport , and a comprehensive insurance plan inclusive of repatriation is also provided for.
In some cases, in partnership with our correspondent, Sherpa Children Assistance Association, we may as well provide for accommodation ( lodging) and food during the duration of the stay in Nepal.
Complete Pharmacy and first aid kits are always available at location of the stay.
Community Ownership
We work on the belief that the development of community assets contributes to a thriving civil society and ownership is a big part of community development. It’s not just about owning assets such schools, community centers , health posts, it is also about the self-management of those assets and how they contribute to wider social goals, eg. empowerment, regeneration, well-being and ‘place making’.
Getting it right means agreeing on the strategic interests of a community and how everyone contributes to the aim or goal. Community ownership in itself builds trust and promotes learning and participation, and acts as a strong example for others to follow.
Gender Equality
We recognise that gender equality and the empowerment of women are important goals in their own right and vital to poverty elimination& enhancement of health and education
Measuring Our Impact
In Solucham the Members take collective responsibility for managing the charity’s resources and justify the expenditure by providing evidence of need from the Nepal correspondent organization. Members are not distant to the operations in Nepal but are involved on a daily basis with details such as proposals, cash flow and financial reporting.
We take the view that our money has to be earned, evaluated and accounted for, or else it stops. We try not to use the word ‘aid’ because of its associations with ‘free’ money, and we work hard to ensure that money is only ever a part of the solution to any problem.
We want to show how our funding creates measurable change through proper reporting. We ask ourselves questions like “what is the value of our work?”, “what would happen if we stopped our work?”, and “what are the developmental goals and the specific aims of the program?”.
We collect information on all our programs, mostly informally through a continual discourse with the people on site. Data is collected in a number of ways which are relevant and sympathetic to the communities and area being visited. Some of it is handwritten on forms, some of it is online, some video and photographic.
Quantitative data is slightly easier – for example, number of children in school. Qualitative data is harder to collect and understand – there are different meanings to the phrase ‘quality of life’ for example, and we need to be careful not to impose foreign concepts of happiness, achievement, progress and so on to people whose perception of life is different. This interaction between us and the beneficiaries is why we love what we do. Over the years those beneficiaries become friends and colleagues and it’s much easier to gauge the ‘rightness’ of what we do.
Our local Solucham partner organization in Nepal, Sherpa Children Assistance Association help us a lot – they know exactly what it means to feel secure, stable, happy or inspired. The volunteers who come out often find themselves learning about these differences in life values because we ask them to get involved with our staff in collecting data and helping us evaluate our work.
Born at the foot of the Mont-Blanc, moving towards the foothills of Mount Everest. Solu^Cham aims at Connecting Mountain's People and Bringing sustainable development opportunities for the youth of Solu-Khumbu in Nepal.