When we think of Nepal, we think of mountains, different landscapes, temples and festivals. We seldom consider Nepal a home to generations of people with much indigenous knowledge and expertise. Perhaps one of the few good things that has come about from the COVID-19 crisis is that we now understand the value of knowledge passed down through generations. We finally see an opportunity to leverage this local knowledge to create a sustainable source of income for local communities.
Empowering Communities Amidst Tourism Challenges: CHN’s Innovative Project Collaboration
This is precisely what the Community Homestay Network (CHN) is doing. CHN is a social enterprise that works to empower communities across Nepal through tourism. Unfortunately, the abrupt halt in tourism due to the COVID-19 crisis has meant that many tourism-dependent communities are financially worse off. To help communities in these difficult times, CHN, with support from Booking.com’s Booking Booster program, is working with 10 tourism-dependent communities to develop 12 local products that range from traditional wooden carvings to clarified butter (ghee). One such community is the Barauli community in the Nawalpur District of Nepal.
Barauli is a picturesque village home to the indigenous Tharu community. The Barauli Community Homestay has helped usher prosperity in the village through tourist activities. Besides tourism, the community is involved in farming vegetables, grains, ducks, and fish on a small and sustainable scale. CHN has partnered with the Barauli Community Homestay to develop duck and fish as end-products and established a market linkage to benefit community members.
Revitalizing Local Cuisine
Seeing that a potential market for these local products could be domestic restaurants and hotels, CHN launched a “Collaboration for Communities” project. Traditional Comfort and Bricks Cafe have been part of this collaboration and are actively supporting this project by including the local duck from Barauli in preparing food items. The “Barauli ko Haas” (duck dish) served at Traditional Comfort’s rooftop restaurant and at Bricks Cafe has already become a favourite of visitors who frequent the restaurants. At a time when many restaurants in Kathmandu are dependent on imported meat and fish products to prepare dishes, Traditional Comfort and Bricks Cafe are paving the way for supporting local suppliers.
So far, this collaboration between CHN and the two restaurants has helped the Barauli community earn Rs. 2,81,000. This is at a time when their revenue from tourism was zero. This project has helped Barauli successfully diversify their income sources.
