By 18, many Nepali girls are placed in an arranged marriage, unless they have the resources to begin their secondary education. Prakash was Sunita’s caretaker when he managed the children’s home she was placed in as a toddler, so she has been part of our Ascend family for over a decade. When her primary school was complete, she wanted nothing more than to go to nursing school. With the generous support of our donors, we raised enough money for the downpayment on her college tuition. In 2020 she completed school and became a registered nurse. Sunita’s life is no longer defined by the husband chosen for her, but by the knowledge and skills she works hard to master by her own volition. She is now happily married and pursuing a Masters in Public Health.

Beginning in 2021, Ascend began funding tuition for the next young woman in this progam, named Ritu. She is from Prakash’s home district, raised by a single mother who works as a farmer. Ritu’s family is part of the “untouchable” caste, among the poorest of Nepalis. Like Sunita, Ritu wanted to study medicine. She graduated in 2024 and now works as a nurse in her community.

After the success of these two, the community asked if we could fund not one but three girls all at once! Amika, Manisa, and Babita are best friends who studied together to get into a very selective and rigorous agriculture science program. They all earned scholarships to cover their tuition but their families needed help with all the other costs: books, lodging, uniforms, etc. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, all three started the program in 2025 and are thriving.

A women’s co-operative in the Lalitpur District, south of Kathmandu, lost their office to the 2015 earthquake. We purchased a piece of land in their name, and used an earthquake-safe technology called earthbags to build their new home. It includes their working space and a large multi-use room for educational courses, health clinics, and community gatherings.

The co-operative, now 13 years old, has grown from $25,000 in seed funding to over $150,000 currently in circulation. It now has over 330 members and is still growing. The women report a reduction in domestic violence, among other social and economic benefits.

The Malta cooperative is the model for all our other women’s cooperative. Read about out current Women and Water strategic plan here.

Ascend’s New Zealand based team helped the local government kick-start our newest project; a dairy cooperative. The program has placed 6 subsidized buffalos with families that already know how to manage them. The milk from these buffalo is collected daily and sold within the community. This not only brings income to the families, but provides organic nutrition. Seventeen more families are on the waitlist to join the cooperative.

The cooperative currently supplies an average of 60L of milk per day and hopes to increase to 1,000L per day within a year and to 10,000L per day within 5 years. To scale, the program needs equipment like a chiller and circulator and additional staff to keep up with the demand.

Imagine you don’t have advil for a headache, or even a bandaid for a cut. Most of our friends in rural Nepal have little to no access to medical supplies, with the exception of small outposts run by the government. However even these health offices only have basic supplies, and very basic first aid education. There is a huge gap in needs vs access to health care, and it is something we hear about during every visit. From April 15-18 2018, we partnered with an American and Nepali doctors and local health staff to travel to three different villages in the Malta region, where they were able to see 355 patients.  Three weeks later, the Nepali health team traveled to the Nawalparasi District and ran another health camp there serving another 249 patients.

In addition to being a wonderful opportunity to share healthcare access with some of our partner villages, one of our goals was to gather baseline data on what types of ailments rural people in these regions are experiencing and what their greatest needs are. The most common health problems reported were reproductive health, skin diseases and digestive issues. Specifically, uterine prolapse is a major concern in all the villages we work with.

In February 2020, we partnered with a local medical non-profit to run a women’s health specific clinic to treat reproductive issues and identify women with uterine prolapse. This debilitating condition effects up to 10% of women in Nepal and is generally caused by heavy labor and uneducated birthing practices. Many women were able to be treated in the field, but the most severe cases were transported to the nearest hospital for corrective surgery. In total, 277 women aged 13-80 were seen by doctors in 2 days.

After a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal in 2015, we launched a shelter building project in a village called Ghusel, south of Kathmandu. The original brick homes suffered severe damage, and most belonging to lower caste families were completely inhabitable. Our team worked alongside the locals to design and build sturdy bamboo homes and in turn, lasting relationships. Thanks to an amazing ongoing effort from our international team and volunteers, 600 people now live in the temporary shelters, which will remain home for the people in Ghusel until they can afford to rebuild a more permanent structure.