Livelihood Fellowship Program Launched for Nepal

By Nanda Kishor Mandal

The earthquakes of April 25 & May 13, 2015 not only shattered the human lives and their homes but also had a devastating impact on several organizations. All size and types of organizations were affected putting a hold on the bread and butter of lots of families. Large organizations and corporations have been able to revive themselves but the micro, small and medium enterprises  owned at the community level or at the individual level are still struggling to continue making a living for themselves and their employees.

One of the main reason for this struggle is  the dearth of trained professionals who understand and practice comprehensive and context specific livelihood/enterprise recovery interventions. Secondly, professionals with such skills have not been able to reach where they are needed the most because many organizations lack the financial capacity to employ these trained professionals. Hence, it is becoming a vicious cycle that needs to be broken immediately.

Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies & Centre for Livelihood and Social Innovations, School of Social Work, TISS Mumbai in partnership with Women Development and Advocacy Centre (WDAC), Nepal jointly launches Post Graduate Diploma Programme in Disaster and Livelihood Recovery for the people of Nepal. The program emerges to fill the gap especially in the post-Earthquake context of Nepal.

The main objective of the programme is to create a group of disaster management professionals to work towards building social and economic capacity for organizations to recover from disaster impacts and enable a broader understanding of building livelihood institutions and respond to the livelihood risks and uncertainties.

The programme will consist of two semesters in which theory classes will be held in TISS Campus in Mumbai and internship in organizations in Nepal under the close supervision of TISS faculty members and WDAC team members. During the internship the fellows will be responsible to bring tangible and incremental changes in the organization.

There are total 20 seats available in the program. Preference will be given to candidates who are from (domicile) or working among disaster affected communities.

Visit WDAC website for more information about Post Graduate Diploma Programme. Please contact Nanda Kishor Mandal, mandal1985 at gmail dot com if you are interested in applying for this program.

Nanda Kishor Mandal is the founder/director of Women Development Advocacy Center in Kathmandu, Nepal.