Activities
Supporting the Nepalese universities in their development towards inclusive management and practices.
Current Activities in the EATHEN project
Monitoring visits to the Support Centers
EATHEN-project continued its activities in autumn 2022. Part of the final seminar were the numerous monitoring visits to Support Centers. The coordinator, JAMK, Dr Maija visited Kathmandu University and its new initiative, Namsaling village in the District Ilam, which is not possible to reach in normal vehicle and in the rainy season not at all. KU is starting a Support center to this very remote village. The region “Ilam” is famous of its tea plants all around. There is an endangered marginalized community living called “Lepcha”. They run a tea factory of its some pictures as attached. Ku wants to support Lepcha marginalzed community with the EATHEN-project networking.
Other monitoring visits were made to the Tribhuvan University, main campus, Pokhara and Dhankuta campuses, including numerous schools nearby - read one of the monitoring reports below.
On the tour the colleagues from the Teiresias center, Masaryk University, trained staff members of the Support Centers on the use of new equipment.
Online networking of Support Centers' coordinators
New activity in the project has been the online networking of Support Center`s coordinators for sustainability reasons. All Nepalese partner universities participate in the networking, where professor Arbinda Bhomi`s Support Center Guidelines were reflected, coordinators tasks and responsibilities were discussed and know-how shared.
The final EATHEN seminar on 30-31 August, 2022
The EATHEN-project partners gathered together after the long COVID-period in Kathmandu for the final seminar on 30.8.2022. On the following day, on 31.8.2022 the partners evaluated the whole project and summarized the successes as well as the points to be corrected in later actions.
The EATHEN project on the Talk with Om talkshow in Nepal
EATHEN partners were talking about the inclusion in education and development work on the Nepalese Talk with Om talkshow: Watch the program on Youtube (11.9.2022)
Sign language training in June 2022
The 6-day Nepali Sign Language Training has been successfully completed with the active facilitation of Nepali Sign Language expert from Central Higher Secondary School, Naxal, Kathmandu (Ms. Yasoda Gautam) and active participation of 25 participants from TU, KU and NOU. On June 20th 2022 the participants were provided with Certificate of Nepali Sign Language Training. Though it is a very short-term training, the sign language expert has tried to provide hands-on experiences on Nepali sign language as much as possible. The training helped to recognize Nepali and English alphabets, numbers, and signs for basic words and sentences. The participants - coordinators of Support Centres, teachers and admin staff - will be able to understand preliminary signs that the deaf students use during their visit to support centres that will help them to communicate with the students who use sign language.
Activities in 2022:
- Benchmarking visit to Finland April 2022: read more
- Implementing the courses (6) for Support Center staff and administration. Responsible Masaryk University (the Czech Republic). The courses were focused on the use of equipment in supporting students with disabilities and students from marginalized groups.
- A benchmarking visit to the Czech Republic, Masaryk University and Teirezias center and also combined travel to Italy, Bologna University. Part of the benchmarking will be dissemination seminar for Czech audience.
- Final seminar in Nepal in August 2022.
- MoEST's benchmarking to University of Bologna in September 2022.
- Monitoring visits to universities' Support Centers.
- The year 2022 was also time for dissemination: if COVID enables, partners will attend an international equality conference, write articles and organize awareness raising seminar in Nepal.
Activities in 2021:
- Finalizing the tendering of equipment for Support Centers
- Procurement of equipment - in all 3 universities and 5 campuses by the end of 2021
- Planning the training program for Support center staff and administration: University of Bologna responsible
- Implementing the training program by UNIBO
- Starting to plan the training courses for the spring 2022
- the Ground Breaking Ceremony of Inclusive Toilet at Kathmandu University held on Nov 19 (World Toilet Day)
- Steering committee meeting of EATHEN at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
- Project Dissemination Meeting with the Ambassador of Finland. On 15th November 2021, Kathmandu University organized the EATHEN Project dissemination meeting with the Ambassador of Finland, His Excellency Mr. Pertti Anttinen and the officials from the Finnish Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.'
EATHEN steering committee at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Nepal.
Videos:
Tour at the Dhankuta Campus: watch the video on Youtube
Greetings from EATHEN project in Nepal - video greetings for the Erasmusdays 2020 event
Read the EATHEN blogs
EATHEN project colleagues have written blog posts about
- Benchmarking visit to Masaryk University - The visit gave the team a possibility to get insight into developing services for the five support centers that will be created during the EATHEN project in Nepal to provide equal access to higher education for students with disabilities and from marginalized groups.
- Virtual visits which brought the partners and stakeholders together to discuss local solutions. The virtual tours have also given the partners from six universities and stakeholders a possibility to get together and combine their expertise and learn from each other as they plan support centres.
- Creating the support centres. Project colleagues in Nepal have visited schools in Kathmandu and toured remote areas to meet students with disabilities and from marginalized group - to gather information about what kinds of challenges students encounter as they access or study in higher education. The support centres can help students with diverse educational needs to continue their learning processes in higher education.
Find all these blogs below: