CBB funds six self-help groups in Nepal through its partner, Educate the Children. An intensive program gives 120 low-caste women training in literacy, health care, women's rights and income-generating skills. The women's husbands are required to participate in some of their training with them.
By borrowing from their micro-banks, many of these women have begun family businesses, such as raising pigs or goats, jewelry making, tailoring, shoe-repair, a tea house or commercial flower gardens, etc. The women also learn to cultivate their own vegetable gardens and to build a sanitary outhouse, for which the materials are supplied to them. The Gairi Kuwa women's group has specialized in raising flowers and marketing them in Kathmandu. Several dozen kinds of flowers are raised, including high-value varieties not otherwise found in Nepal.
One child of each woman, preferably a girl, receives financial support for her education. The annual cost of this five year training program is $100 per woman.
