SPW URJAA is a Nepali non-profit organization, registered in Lalitpur District Administrative Office, under the Nepal Government Registration Act, in April 2003 having registration number 1759/060/61 and further affiliated with the Social Welfare Council (SWC) with affiliation number 16140, headquartered in Lalitpur. Organization was popularly known as SPW Nepal but later in June 2018, the executive board decided to change its name as SPW URJAA or URJAA through the revised constitution. The new name better portrayed the organization work. “URJAA” means “Energy”, representing young people’s positive energy.

URJAA prepares and empowers young people in Nepal to lead the change through youth-led development. It focuses on improving the WASH, Education, Climate Justice Livelihood and Sexual and Reproductive Health. It further works to increase young people’s participation in decision making process at community and national level. It has trained and capacitated more than 800 national and international youths, reaching about 15,000 children, engaged as a volunteer/young champion through various youth-led programme in local schools and communities.

The organization is led by the young professionals, who are experienced on youth led programme and have demonstrated their potential on successful strategy development, project development, project implementation on various thematic areas such as Education, Emergency, WASH, Climate Justice, Livelihood and SRHR. SPW Urjaa is operated through the executive board, led by the chairperson. The executive board consist of 7 members where 50% of them are female. The leadership is selected through the democratic process.

Our Vision: Peaceful and prosperous society where children and young people’s voices are heard with optimum attention.

Our Goal: Young people are at the forefront to lead change and development.

Objectives:

1. Children and young people are empowered to live healthy lives
2. Children and young people take a lead in addressing the core issues affecting their lives through partnership at local, regional, national and international level.

Thematic Areas:

1. Girls Education
2. WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) including Menstrual Hygiene
3. Climate Justice
4. Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI)
5. Livelihood (Financial and literacy skills)
6. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR)
7. Global Citizenship

Local community schools are the entry point of our programs where trained volunteers will work with teachers and students on various thematic areas. Our volunteers supported in strengthening the school-based child club named “Green Club”, by involving the children in various activities to inform, aware, and empower them on the issues affecting on their daily lives in schools and in communities. These clubs are an essential component of our programme and the students takes actions through the clubs. These clubs are school based group of students who undertake various activities for their own personal development as well as communities. Green club is a platform by which they can organize numbers of activities themselves to learn more about development, environment, and social issues and also take actions to respond the existing problems. Therefore, these clubs are the major component of Urjaa’s program. These clubs will make schools accountable to emphasize on waste reduction and recycling, with composting systems and recycling bins located throughout the schools.

Apart from the regular delivery/implementation of projects/program, Urjaa has been proactively engaged in responding to the emergency situations and addressed the situations by delivering Emergency Education Program. During 2015 earthquake and while responding to Covid-19 pandemic, we focused on community schools, students and teachers in our project areas to ensure they have a safe space and environment to continue their study and get psychosocial support to deal with the mental health issues. Urjaa established 310 Temporary Learning Centers (TLCs) in six most earthquake affected districts: Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Rasuwa, Makwanpur, Ramechhap, Sindhuli, and Dolakha during the 2015 earthquake. Through these TLCs we have reached 9524 students in 281 Schools to ensure the classes are running smoothly and children have safe space to study. Similarly, 84 WASH facilities were built in these schools. WASH facilities include 253 water tanks and 194 hand washing supply kits. As children should not suffer from multiple vulnerabilities during and after disaster and deprived from the right to education, we have provided psycho-social training to 1038 teachers to equip them with the skills to deal with these vulnerable students. We have further mobilized 199 local volunteer who have skills to deliver the Interactive Learning Techniques (ILT) in these schools. Through this intervention, Urjaa supported Nepal Government’s ‘Back to School’ campaign which enabled children retain in the school for long run.

Similarly, during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, we delivered program through our Alumni Engagement Committee consisted of 10 former volunteers who worked in collaboration with local young people, and community volunteers in Godawari, Dakshinkali and Mahankali Rural Municipalities in Kathmandu and Lalitpur districts. They worked in 11 schools and supported 2514 school students, 21 teachers, and 189 government community frontline workers with enough Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and hygiene materials to last for 1.5 months, including masks, gloves, sanitizer, and buckets with taps, soap, sanitary pads, dustbins and hand washing stations installed in schools, ward offices and health centers. This enabled schools and health centers to carry out their work in a safer environment. The community volunteers successfully advocated for local government to continue to supply schools and health centers using a system of resource distribution based on need rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, making more efficient use of resources. SPW Urjaa provided an online training to the volunteers to deliver the WASH sessions to the students. Once the schools are opened, they cascaded those sessions to the school using the preventive measures.