President of Nepal Inaugurates Agriculture Lab Built by CHOICE Humanitarian Nepal

    SALT LAKE CITY, UT, February 10, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Utah-based international nonprofit CHOICE Humanitarian has been working in Nepal for over 20 years ending extreme poverty in the rural district of Lamjung.

Recently CHOICE Nepal hosted the Honorable Mrs. Bidhya Devi Bhandari, President of Nepal for the Inauguration ceremony of the Agriculture Laboratory Building at the Janakalyan Secondary School at Palung, Makwanpur, Nepal.

The lab will benefit 1,245 students of Janakalyan Secondary School and all the farmers from the community. Students will learn new techniques, and the farmers can test the quality of soil and as well as disease in plants. Agriculture is the main source of income of Palung. Twenty thousand families in Palung are engaged in vegetable farming due to the proximity of Kathmandu which gives them a broader customer base.

Prateek Sharma, CHOICE Nepal Director, explained to President Bhandari about the project. She was interested to see the facility. Residents were also interested to see the facility and to learn the benefits that the lab will provide to their work as farmers.

President Bhandari said, "It's the right time to focus on practical education. I hope this agricultural lab will be helpful to engage students in practical learning and the school will provide much needed technical assistance to the farmers." She went on to say that, "The country should always be committed to providing quality education to all as it is one of the robust pillars of development."

President Bhandari arrived on the occasion of Golden Jubilee of Janakalyan School. During her visit, she participated in two significant events as part of the inauguration. One was a statue to mark the Golden Jubilee. The statue is carved with potatoes, books, a plowing farmer and an eye which depict the vision of the community. Equal preference is given to agriculture and education. The second inaugural activity was the agriculture lab that is considered to be the symbol of the vision being translated into action.

Seeing the commitment and workmanship from CHOICE Nepal, the chairperson of school management committee Rajeev Santyang and headteacher Sanobhai Karki said, "We know only one NGO in Nepal which translates their words into action. That is CHOICE Nepal. We had never imagined that this project would be completed by the very date of the President's visit. We humbly thank CHOICE because the Agricultural Lab was the main highlight of the golden jubilee program and the president was very happy to see it."

Congratulations to CHOICE Nepal for this remarkable achievement in completing this Agriculture Laboratory building made possible by the generous support of the doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation.

CHOICE Humanitarian is a non-profit organization with more than 35 years experience working to end extreme poverty in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, and Peru. The non-profit partners with committed rural communities where villagers live on less than $2 a day to develop strong leadership, create economic opportunity and provide training through CHOICE's native, in-country staff using the CHOICE Leadership Model. This method empowers villagers to a life of self-reliance and to create their own path out of extreme poverty.

# # #