IMPACT REPORT FY2024
In 2024, NIVAS made significant strides in expanding our reach and impact, providing vital solutions for families experiencing homelessness and extreme poverty.
Read on to find out what we achieved with the backing of our tenacious supporters.
NIVAS built 16 homes for 59 people, including 42 kids.
Our mission is to help people living in extreme poverty find dignity, strength, and security through the process of becoming homeowners. In 2024, we partnered with 16 incredible women-led families on this journey. These mothers and grandmothers have faced major obstacles throughout their lives, including restricted freedom and limited access to education and economic opportunities. These challenges have often left them vulnerable to poverty and instability. Now, as single parents, they are working hard to provide for their children or grandchildren. Insecure housing significantly impacts a child's well-being, affecting their health, education, and overall development. By working together to develop pathways to homeownership, families are able to create a safe and stable foundation for their children to thrive.
Now these 16 families own their dream homes. Some of the moms and grandmas have even told us they’re planning to live out the rest of their days in their new home. This asset and the generational impact that comes with it have immense power.
We collaborated with local government to develop financial resources for women-led families.
Through our advocacy efforts and partnerships with local authorities, we’ve increased both awareness of housing equity issues and the resources allotted for women-led families. Often local municipalities have a positive mindset toward bettering their community but need both an advocate and technical partner to implement their resources effectively. After a year of extensive groundwork, in 2024 all of our partner communities mobilized substantial support and funding dedicated to housing single mothers and their children. Their leaders brought aggregate materials, concrete and more in support of single mothers. We can see the tides slowly turning for women and their kids in these remote communities.
193 community members attended our construction trainings and 96 developed advanced skills on our job sites.
2024 was an exciting year for our on-the-job trainees. We deepened our programming through CTEVT (Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training) certified courses. Trainees worked through a 30-day hands-on course building a new home during each session. This means, when trainees leave our program they are prepared to the national standard to engage in construction work. Our 2024 trainees are already gaining employment contracts to work on larger-scale construction projects due to their CTEVT level experience. And some are sticking with NIVAS to continue building homes in their community. It’s all a win-win. With employment, comes stability and opportunity. To boot, we had a record number of women join our on-the-job training program and construction orientations this year! Bit by bit, women are establishing themselves in the construction sector in Nepal.
73 Women attended our income-generation trainings and our new homeowners launched their new businesses with seed capital.
In order to provide a holistic program that not only addresses housing problems, but seeks to help families exit poverty entirely, our program offers: housing, skill-building, and income source development through our livelihood program. The livelihood program equips families with the resources they need to build a sustainable income stream by building their skills through training then launching the business through a seed capital infusion.
In 2024, families participating in the program used their seed capital to purchase over two dozen goats, construct animal enclosures, and secure feed, insurance, and vaccinations. This investment not only provides a source of income through milk, ghee, and meat sales, but also supports families in building valuable animal husbandry skills.
Some of our new homeowners were also located close enough to join a local chapter of Heifer International's VITA program, which bridges the gap between small-scale producers and profitable market opportunities. This is another win-win as we connect our partner families with more social and financial capital-building opportunities.
As we continue to adapt our programs to the local context, the emphasis on income generation is reinforced. On average, the women we work with are earning 8,000 to 10,000 NRs ($58-72) per month when we begin working together. With the international poverty line currently at $2.15/day per person, this means our partner families were living on a max of $2.40/day for the entire family of 2 to 8 people. It’s clear that continuing to help these families grow their financial capacity is critical to their long-term success in their new home and to our success at NIVAS.
Our programming created 122 jobs, including social work, surveying, engineering, research, teaching, masonry, woodworking, and videography.
The success of NIVAS is powered by a dedicated network of individuals and organizations. From identifying families living in vulnerable situations to navigating complex systems and securing vital resources, our work demands a collaborative spirit and a diverse range of expertise. We are deeply grateful for the passionate individuals who have joined the NIVAS mission, contributing their unique skills and unwavering commitment. This collaborative effort not only fuels families to build stable futures but also creates meaningful employment opportunities, fostering a vibrant and engaged community around our shared goals.
We began development of a new curriculum to empower Indigenous women with knowledge of land and housing resources.
Often in our work, land control and land ownership are the biggest barriers to a family moving into safe shelter. In reality, building a house is easy in comparison to securing land. This is one of the biggest challenges faced by families living in poverty in Nepal. It goes far beyond the families we work with, affecting entire communities across the country.
In partnership with MetLife Foundation, NIVAS began developing a program in late 2024 to build the capacity of hundreds of families dealing with landlessness, homelessness, and housing insecurity. The goal of the curriculum is to enhance local understanding of legal frameworks, their own land and housing rights, how to access resources, and fostering advocacy efforts at the municipal and province level to address landlessness and housing insecurity going forward. Our team is excited to launch these training workshops in 2025 as they will not only make their own work easier, with applicants coming in with a higher level of knowledge, but it will fundamentally change the local housing landscape.
"When a woman knows her rights, how to use them, and how to advocate for her rights, she is stronger." -Amal, Women for Women International
We hosted design workshops, focused on women’s voices, to deepen our understanding of local living.
In 2024, we embarked on an initiative to deepen our knowledge through grassroots architectural design workshops within the communities we serve. Our goal was to gain a deeper understanding of how women and children, particularly in single-parent households, truly experience their homes. We sought to learn about the diverse cultural values and living practices within Nepal and how these unique needs should be reflected in our home designs. In addition, these workshops provided a valuable platform for community members to share their feedback on our existing home models, ensuring our designs remain responsive to the evolving needs and aspirations of the families we serve.
Sushma B. Shrestha, NIVAS Director of Impact & Innovation
"At NIVAS, we believe that true empowerment comes from within the community. By bringing women together, fostering strong social connections, and providing access to resources and opportunities, we not only build houses, but we build a stronger, more resilient Nepal where women can thrive."
So Much Love to everyone who made this work possible in 2024!
In FY2024, 139 remarkable individuals, businesses, and foundations invested in this work. Without these critical partnerships, we could not deliver on our goals. Our donors see the value in supporting deserving families and for that we have the utmost appreciation and gratitude every single day. Your belief in the transformative power of stable housing is what fuels our every move. You are our foundation, our champions, and our family.
Here’s to doing BIG THINGS together in 2025!
