General

In the state of Kayah, indigenous peoples' territories are threatened by widespread economic takeover, including forestry and mining. Most villagers have no officially recognized right to the land they till. The project carries out community mapping and do cumentation of existing customary land use and management in seven indigenous communities in the Hpruso area and utilizes this material for land rights advocacy work. The project communities have been internally displaced and settled in their present areas . The inhabitants of the area are heavily dependent on rotational rice cultivation. The fallow lands in rotational farming are usually categorized as fallow and vacant land under the current virgin, fallow, vacant (VFV) law (amended 2018), therefore those farming lands left fallow are under constant threat of being grabbed by the State as well as by powerful business groups. The purpose of this project is to expand an ongoing work and to include new communities in the face of the immediate threat of land g rabs. The documentation utilizes participatory action research methods. The data collection is based on teams of community representatives. Project communities will also receive training on relevant national and international legal frameworks and indigenou s peoples' rights. As a result of the project: the communities have documented their land use and management practices and the customary law guiding these; with the assistance of facilitators, the communities have delineated their village territories and p roduced a land use map; and the communities actively participate in lobbying activities in collaboration with allied organizations and networks at township, district and state level. Community networking and exchange of experiences will be created to provi de inspiration and help strengthening the self-confidence of communities to engage in advocacy and lobbying for the recognition of the customary communal land rights at different decision making levels in the government. The project covers seven villages n ear the town of Hpruso. In these communities, a total of 1089 people live in 199 households. After the project, project community leaders support the work of other communities, in order to bring about similar action in other communities and to make the lan d rights movement for indigenous peoples as broad and effective as possible. Project is implemented by Karuna Mission Social Solidarity-Loikaw.

General

The proposed project is a continuation of an earlier project. The project will be implemented in Rautahat District and it focuses on four major interventions, a) support to involve targeted women in farming, b) support to improve targeted women?s social an d economic entrepreneurial capacity, c) support to include targeted women?s food security, food sovereignty and biodiversity related needs and concerns inlocal government?s policies, strategies and plans, and d) advocate for providing land to the landless Dalits and Dalit women. Through the project it is expected that: a) Dalit women get land and have their ownership, do farming, produce their food by themselves and start to make their lives secured in food, b) Dalit women engage in climate and disaster res ilient farming with the diversification of high value crops so that, they experience impervious, better-off and comfortable lives in the society, and c) Dalit women become able to incorporate their plans into local government?s program and budget and get c ontinue support in future too. Women groups from the earlier project area will continue to produce vegetables in their habitat areas or lease the land. They will also be involved in diversification of nutritious and high value vegetable crops by advancing their knowledge and skills. Continued social mobilization and capacity building process will empower them to raise their voices for land and food rights strongly and also integrate their real needs into local government?s annual programs. The new addition al groups will be capacitated to adjust with the existing groups. The project will continue with existing seven groups of 160 households in Rautahat District. There will be addition of maximum seven groups of the poorest, marginalized and landless Dalits women in Madhesh, totalling more than 150 households. Hence, there will be more than 300 women producers or households as direct beneficiaries and around 150 indirect beneficiaries (elected representatives and citizens). HIMAWANTI Nepal in technical suppor t with WLCN (Women Leading for Change in Natural Resource Management) will cooperate with local government. HIMAWANTI Nepal will also regularly coordinate with district level Land Rights Forum, Dalit organizations, other concerned stakeholders related to a griculture, livestock, land and province government to for effective implementation of the project.