Impact Report: The COVID Response Fund
In March, Oda Foundation launched the COVID Response Fund. Our donors joined together, helping us to raise over $8,000 USD. The COVID Response Fund has been critical, allowing our team to address unprecedented needs including: disrupted education, food insecurity, outbreak preparedness, continued access to medical care, and local economic depression.
This report details comprehensive responses to mitigate damage to Oda Foundation operations, support to the greater Kalikot community, and critical assistance for programs in health, education, and women's livelihood.
Daily Operations
All around the world individuals, families, and communities face a heightened level of uncertainty. In Oda, that uncertainty has come in many different forms including: food security, loss of income, and access to healthcare. Here are some of the ways we've worked against that uncertainty:
Even with major shifts in clinic hours and staffing, emergency medical care has remained accessible 24/7.
100% of our staff have kept their jobs, and a COVID-specific health insurance plan was provided to all.
We have provided COVID-critical medical equipment previously absent in our region.
Over 1,000 kgs of foodstuffs have been distributed to at-risk families.
We continue to work with local healthcare officials on COVID testing, tracking, and treatment procedures.
An isolation unit for our municipality was set up on our campus to treat the critically ill.
Our education team has engaged with local school teachers and administrators, ensuring students receive attention while schools remain closed.
Food relief began in mid-March. Here, family members carry bags of rice from Oda Foundation's campus up to their homes.
Karan Singh, Oda Foundation's CEO and an Oda native, joined our senior staff in unloading relief supplies for migrant workers.
Rural Education During A Pandemic
As Kalikot has become safer, limited groups have resumed meeting. Above, Education Manager Aryashree conducts an outdoor training with teachers.
COVID has shut down schools in Nepal for over 5 months. It is an unprecedented challenge in our education efforts, but with your support we've been able to:
Deliver 700+ worksheets to students at home.
Continue training for local teachers while classrooms remain closed.
Sustain investment and community buy-in for public school policies and procedures.
The fight to support local public education, helping it achieve a standard that local parents and their students deserve, is one of Oda Foundation's most difficult challenges yet.
While we continue to look for solutions that might allow us to innovate through technology in this remote region, currently we have focused on working with public school administrators to ensure that they develop strong policies and school reopening plans.
While schools remain closed, shared households have hosted school lessons within their homes.
To safely distribute continuing education materials, our Education Team walks through the village common areas to distribute schoolwork.
COVID + Rural Healthcare
At the local school, which has been converted to a quarantine facility, Oda Foundation healthcare staff administered COVID tests to high-risk migrant workers returning from India.
We made the Oda Foundation's healthcare staff and facilities immediately available for pandemic support. This allowed us to play a significant role in our municipality's COVID response including:
Hosting the municipality's only isolation unit, newly equipped with COVID-related equipment to provide care for respiratory infection.
Rearranging facilities to make safe emergency care (including deliveries) available 24/7. We have delivered 4 healthy babies since March!
Significant time coordinating our organizational power and resources, in support of the local government's testing and quarantine procedures and management.
Ensuring local healthcare workers are equipped with PPE.
The COVID Fund has allowed thousands in our community to feel protected, dignified, and certain of critical healthcare services.
In early May, this mother safely delivered her healthy newborn at the Oda Foundation clinic!
When patients are too sick to walk, family members often carry them - as seen here, an elderly patient was carried down to our clinic.
Women's Livelihood Trainings
Even throughout an incredibly challenging time, we saw amazing growth in the newly formed Odanaku Women's Cooperative. This is the first organization of its kind in Odanaku - an inter-caste women's livelihood group, organized exclusively by women and for women, and registered with the Nepali government as its own independent organization.
During lockdown, the Women's Cooperative, alongside Oda support staff, gained permission from the government to work together in small groups! Their work has included:
Planting vegetable varieties new to Kalikot - important for nutrition and potential economic return.
Growing membership from 30 members to over 70
Agriculture trainings for higher production.
Continued trainings on women's leadership and group organization.
Saving money to establish a micro-loan and education fund.
Creating opportunities for women's advocacy
The Oda Foundation Mission:
Headquartered in rural Kalikot, our initiatives in healthcare, education, and community support offer critical, lifesaving services. Hand-in-hand with local leaders, private partners, and government offices, we develop community-led solutions, helping Nepal’s most impoverished and remote communities to thrive.
