“Regardless of your Age, Embrace the Challenge of Skill to achieve Perfection at Work”

Hill Dalits are one of the poorest and deprived community of Nepal who have to deal with social stigma and thus suffer from extreme poverty and lack of social and economic opportunities.

Sagar BK (Bishwakarma) is a resident of rural village of Pokhara VDC, Rukum District located in Mid-Western Development region of Nepal. He belongs to craftsman community engaged with making of wooden product as the part of daily livelihood. Due to his limitation within his village to enhance his skill in carpentry occupation, he was confined to unskilled and low valued jobs.

Sagar lives in a large family consisting of seven members, he is married and has a son. He used to work as wage laborer with his Uncle (Birkha BK) furniture shop in Rukum District. He used to earn Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 per month that was not sufficient to sustain his family expenses.

Sagar was fortunate to hear through local radio FM announcement about selection of training participants for Advance Furniture Maker training. His Uncle also gave consent to Sagar to apply for the training to enhance his skills in carpentry occupation. After contacting a local NGO (Rukmeli Social Development Center), he was selected to participate in the training which was conducted by Manakamana Training and Skill Development Institute in Kohalpur Municipality, Banke with financial support from USAID, PAHAL Project.

According to his training Instructor Mr Manoj Rana, Sagar was an outstanding and dedicated participant with exceptional ability to excel in all the sessions during the training. He also had opportunity to learn the skills in the form of peer to peer learning (with his training colleagues) hence, he was able to remove his misconception from his previous learning.

After successful completion of his training from 17 Oct till 5 Dec 2016, through his network of family member, Sagar was offered a job in Manamaiju, Tokha Municipality, Kathmandu. Since the mid of Dec 2016, he started his employment in Raj Furniture (Proprietor Raj Dahal) and later moved to Janam Furniture (Proprietor Kumar Shrestha) due to more working opportunities. Currently, he is earning with additional overtime hours Rs 1,000 per day totaling Rs 25,000 to 30,000 per month which is far more than his income back at home. Sagar stated that, he is very much satisfied with his income and his growing expertise in technical aspects of furniture making.

After commanding experience in this sector, Sagar is planning to set up his own furniture making workshop in Rukum District. He modestly stated that “Regardless of your Age, Embrace the Challenge of Skill to achieve Perfection at Work”.