Chitwan lodge accommodation, Nepal

The lodge is proud to be a part of an ideal of tourism with a conscience. We are deeply committed to a long-term policy of contributing by putting something positive back into areas where its properties are located, whether it be the local community or the jungle, and this philosophy is a source of satisfaction and pride for its employees.

For the conservation effort to be successful, villagers have to be involved and responsible for their future. Through education awareness they will grasp their responsibilities as guardians of their natural resources; through special programmes they will develop the alternatives and tools to achieve it. Apart from the obvious benefit of providing jobs for villagers and stimulating the local economy, your stay at the lodge will also help fund its various community development and environmental projects. For a start, 50% of your National Park Entrance fees are channelled back into the villages for development and education. A percentage of proceeds from the lodge shop are also used for our clinic for villagers, community development and nature conservation.

In addition to our direct policy of conserving energy and fuel through the use of solar power and firewood grown on the premises, or logs made of rice husk, reducing noise and air pollution by using ox carts instead of vehicles wherever possible, using bio-gas for cooking meals at the School and processing at the farm, and practicing organic gardening at the organic farms, the many projects funded and supported by the lodge in the surrounding villages are models of the our commitment to the community and the environment, and integrating villagers into the conservation effort.

The lodge clinic, manned by one of our lodge staff with a Community Medical Assistant degree, is for local villagers (24 hours for emergency cases). The minimal 2 rupee (approximately 3 cents) fee collected from patients is put into an emergency fund, available to those who require but can't afford expensive surgery or hospitalisation. The Lodge also provides a vehicle for emergency transportation.

The Swissair Pre-School is a free head-start programme for underprivileged children made possible by Swissair Staff Fund for Children's Relief, our organisation and donations from friends and guests. The School's 87 students receive, free of charge, 2 meals a day, health care, uniforms, and schooling. In exchange for the children's schooling, parents help to grow vegetables for students' meals in the school's organic gardens. This gardening work has not only given them a sense of involvement in their children's education but has inspired them to start many kitchen gardens in the village, thus improving village nutrition. The children's meals are cooked with bio-gas (methane) from the school buffalo and latrines. Once the students graduate from the programme, their onward education in Government schools is also funded and monitored.

The School Library Programme sponsors Saturday reading, art, music and drama activities for all village children, and environmental awareness and bird watching, conservation lectures and environmental programmes for other local schools. Attendance averages 70 children every Saturday.

The School Tree Nursery Project was initiated with financial assistance from the International Trust for Nature Conservation. The programme teaches children conservation and responsibility for their natural resources. It also aids in local reforestation and provides villagers with alternative sources for fodder, fuel and building thus taking pressure off of the environment.

Jatropha Bio-Diesel Project will be growing and processing Jatropha curcas as a clean, renewable fuel oil and a source of income for villagers. As another facet of the group's commitment to preserve the environment we hope to run the lodge's vehicles and generators on alternative fuel produced by this project by 2009. Jatropha yields high-grade carbon dioxide neutral fuel and stores atmospheric carbon, and its oil cake can be used as an organic fertilizer and animal feed. This project is funded by the International Trust for Nature Conservation and Swissair Staff Fund for Children's Relief and will work closely with a women's Buffer Zone group.

Snowball Goat-breeding Project: administered through our school for under-privileged children, is an income source for needy villagers and a way of sharing one's good fortune and strengthening community spirit. A kid from "Snowball" is given to a financially challenged village woman, and when it has bred, she in turn passes an offspring to another villager and so on and on and on, thus helping good fortune to, yes, snowball!

Duff Kennedy Scholarship Fund finances the Government School education of older children from poor families. These students, in return, supervise the Saturday library programmes at the Swissair School. There are currently 90 students assisted by this scholarship programme. Two of them have come full circle and are now back as paid teachers! One is tutoring at the school, and the other is teaching full time in the Musyhar village.

Provision of salaries for Bote & Tharu community teachers (350 students): When the villagers of the Bote & Tharu communities got together and built schools for their children, but subsequently found they were unable to collect sufficient fees to fund teachers' salaries, the organisation initiated a teachers' salary fund for their Schools. It is now supported by guest donations administered by the lodge.

Provision of salary for Mushyar village teacher & tutor (64 students): Similarly, the lodge took up the cause of the Mushyar village children when there was no longer a budget to pay their teacher, who had gone without a salary for 10 months. In addition, to assist the full-time teacher, one of our Duff-Kennedy scholars is working as an after-school tutor. Coming from this village, he has also been an inspiration for illiterate adults in the village who are now learning to read and write thanks to his example. Both salaries are funded by Lodge guests and friends.

Mushyar Children's Garden Project: to teach gardening skills to youngsters and improve village nutrition. A foot pump was offered free of charge to the adults of the village, but they were not keen to dig a well and look after the garden. The older children however took the project on and started to produce vegetables for their families, and earn a small income from surplus vegetables - and the adults are sitting up and taking notice!

Dhajaha Flood Relief Project: When 145 families were left homeless by Narayani River flooding in 2000, the lodge resort stepped in with clothing and regular medical visits to the relief camp. With the generous help of guests, victims built latrines and dug wells for safe drinking water. Years later, they are still in the camp, which is now a village, but at least are living under improved hygiene conditions, with clean water and medical care.

Construction of subsidised foot pumps for villagers, installation of hand pumps and related irrigation projects: Several foot pumps constructed at the school and operating in the villages have provided sources of income for the Mushyar children and a village widow, and have also improved nutrition for many families. A hand pump installed by the lodge with labour from the villagers provides clean water for a number of households and another hand pump installed at a community school provides clean drinking water for 150 children. A toilet facility for this community school has also been constructed with donations from guests and friends.

Agricultural and Vocational Training programmes and workshops for villagers: our organisation is the main employer in the area, but is obviously not in a position to provide a job for every villager who needs one. As an alternative, it offers training so they can go farther afield, armed with a marketable skill. Our organic farm also offers agricultural workshops to introduce new crops and techniques, thus improving village nutrition and income sources.

Womens' Literacy and Empowerment: Classes, organized by the women themselves, are conducted at the Swissair Pre-School at night. They are learning to read and write basic Nepali (and some of them are mothers of our students, so if they need help with their homework, the children can help!). They meet 6 days a week (by candlelight and oil lamp) after a long day of hard work and are proudly and enthusiastically reading, writing, and doing sums and are also studying hygiene, women's rights, cultivation, money transactions, dealing with wild animal threats etc. The lodge also conducts handicrafts classes as an income source, and markets crafts.

Assistance to Buffer Zone, National Park: To protect wildlife and the environment and help in anti-poaching patrols, the lodge provides vehicles, boats, elephants, manpower and other support for patrols and wildlife monitoring projects. A Buffer Zone guard's salary is being paid by our Community Development Fund.

Road/bridge building: The lodge assists in repairing monsoon-damaged roads and also builds roads and bridges with a conscience -- to enable and support essential irrigation channels for village crops.

Recycling programme to assist villagers with selling/bartering old plastic: Villagers and school children are paid to bring in old plastic, thus helping in the recycling effort and keeping the villages clean. The lodge admin guidelines focus on recycling, processing of grey water, black water. Aerosols and non-biodegradable cleaning products and insecticides have been banned and replaced with herbal essences and natural cleaners. Vehicles and filters are maintained to produce minimum emissions. Left-over guest soap (herbal, bio-degradable) is distributed to the children in the village, and they literally line up to receive it! We also places a great emphasis on self-sufficiency. The farms produce organically-grown meat, poultry, eggs, milk, honey and seasonal vegetables and fruits. The kitchen prepares as much as possible from scratch (all baked goods, pastas, preserves, yoghurt, pates etc). Laundry is hand washed and sun-dried; the bath water is solar heated.