USAID’s Nepal Social Marketing and Franchising Project (N-MARC) is blazing new trails in family planning through a partnership with a Nepali pharmaceutical company.

Tshering’s visit, this time, to her home village in Dolakha district was unlike her normal trips. This 26-year old woman was not travelling to meet family, she was there to educate her village people, mostly of the Sherpa ethnic group, about HIV/AIDS prevention and to establish new condom selling links.

On a cold misty February morning in 2008, Chandu hurried to pick up his daily newspaper. He browsed the pages as he sipped his milk tea. “This is it”, he thought out loud, looking at an advertisement calling emerging film makers to be part of an HIV/AIDS prevention short-film competition.

When Nepal first opened its doors to the outside world in the early 1950s, it had no professional nurses. The school now named Lalitpur Nursing Campus began teaching Nepal’s first nurses in 1956, and today offers students a nursing certificate program and a post-basic bachelor of nursing program.

Over 3 million children receive supplements through USAID program
Over three million Nepali children are now receiving twice-yearly vitamin A supplements and about 15,000 child deaths are averted each year in Nepal as a result of this USAID - funded program.

Essential Support Provided for Lalitpur Nursing College
When Nepal first opened its doors to the outside world in the early 1950’s there were no professional nurses in the country. The school now named Lalitpur Nursing Campus began teaching Nepal’s first nurses in 1956, and today offers a Certificate Nursing Program and a Post-basic Bachelor of Nursing Program for its students. Accredited by the Nepal Nursing Council, more than 700 professional nurses have been educated at Lalitpur Nursing Campus over its 45-year history. Importantly, because the school offers boarding, girls from all over the country have access to this education, and graduates of Lalitpur Nursing Campus are working in health care settings all over Nepal where many are in leadership positions in the government and private organizations.