Mercy Corps - Asia: Chyamrangbesi, Nepal

Sabitri Phuyal weeds her family's tomato plants. She and her husband Shyam Prasad depended on their vegetable farm for food and income until the 2015 earthquakes triggered a landslide that wiped out their fields and made it unsafe for them to live in their home. They lived in a temporary shelter with four other families for nine months, and couldn’t work, until Mercy Corps built a gabion wall that secured the hillside above the couple’s home. After the wall was built, Shyam and Sabitri finally felt safe enough to return and begin rebuilding their lives. They took a Mercy Corps’-facilitated vegetable farming training and received plastic sheeting to build a greenhouse, and also participated in Mercy Corps’ family dialogue training, which helps women and heads of household work to together to become stronger and more resilient. “We had lost all hope of coming back. With all that happened, we don't have enough wealth to relocate somewhere else and start a new life as well. So we got encouragement to start farming here, start making our livelihood here again,” says Shyam. “I feel happy when he asks me for my opinion,” Sabitri says. “Before he would just do it himself, and he would work in the fields himself. And I would just think, 'OK that's his job. I'll just let him do it.' But when he asks me, I feel like, 'OK, this is my responsibility too.' I feel good about it. “
Chyamrangbesi, Nepal, March 2018

Sabitri Phuyal weeds her family's tomato plants. She and her husband Shyam Prasad depended on their vegetable farm for food and income until the 2015 earthquakes triggered a landslide that wiped out their fields and made it unsafe for them to live in their home. They lived in a temporary shelter with four other families for nine months, and couldn’t work, until Mercy Corps built a gabion wall that secured the hillside above the couple’s home. After the wall was built, Shyam and Sabitri finally felt safe enough to return and begin rebuilding their lives. They took a Mercy Corps’-facilitated vegetable farming training and received plastic sheeting to build a greenhouse, and also participated in Mercy Corps’ family dialogue training, which helps women and heads of household work to together to become stronger and more resilient.  

“We had lost all hope of coming back. With all that happened, we don't have enough wealth to relocate somewhere else and start a new life as well. So we got encouragement to start farming here, start making our livelihood here again,” says Shyam.  

“I feel happy when he asks me for my opinion,” Sabitri says. “Before he would just do it himself, and he would work in the fields himself. And I would just think, 'OK that's his job. I'll just let him do it.' But when he asks me, I feel like, 'OK, this is my responsibility too.' I feel good about it. “