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As we approach the 2025 EOFY, the Project Didi Board is thrilled to share our 2024 Annual Report with you. This Annual Report doubles as a celebration: Project Didi Australia’s10-year anniversary, supporting the transformative work of our key partner, Asha Nepal. 
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 Easter is coming, which means we all have the perfect opportunity as consumers to shop with our values and support efforts to end modern slavery. Project Didi is here to help you do that as we are members of an Australian coalition campaigning against modern slavery and supporting the work of our friends and powerful advocates, Be Slavery Free, by promoting the 2025 Chocolate Scorecard. The Chocolate Scorecard will help you buy better, so you don’t unknowingly support brands that rely on modern slavery in their supply chains. Unfortunately, the cocoa industry is a hotbed for interconnected issues that precipitate and perpetuate modern slavery, including child labour, and failing to pay cocoa farmers a living wage, even though they believe that living income is a human right. This morning in Canberra, Jo Clay, ACT Greens MLA for Ginninderra, tabled a bill in ACT Parliament to address modern slavery.
The bill proposes to:
Jo Clay said, “Canberrans care about the wellbeing of those in our community, where products come from, where they end up and the welfare of those who are involved in these supply chains. This Bill is an important first step in legislating to effectively respond to modern slavery in the ACT and I look forward to the important community conversation this legislation will initiate.” This post contains a story from a survivor of gender-based violence. We recognise that this story may cause distress or discomfort. We strongly encourage you to read this post in a safe and supportive environment and seek additional support and self-care should you need. Education is key to breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and violence.
Educating girls is linked to faster poverty reduction, better maternal health, lower child mortality, and reduced child marriage and violence against women. This International Women's Day, we're pleased to share that we have committed to increase our support for education for women and girls, through undergraduate, postgraduate and technical skills scholarships. These scholarships will be delivered through our partner, Asha Nepal, with the support of their social worker, counsellor and job coordinator. In one of the best examples of the long-term, transformative impact of our partner's work, some of these young people, with lived experience of trafficking and gender-based violence, were the first children in Asha Nepal’s care in 2008. With Asha's support, they have graduated from school, reintegrated with their family and are now pursuing higher education! We are very pleased to share with you our Annual Report for 2020-21. Thank you to our volunteers, donors, partners and community members, who share our mission to empower women and girls to achieve their full potential. We are planting seeds for trees we ourselves may never sit in the shade of, and this is important work that requires patient, steady and sustained support. Your contributions, time and energy have immense value and we're so grateful that you choose to share them with us. In Nepal, COVID-19 has caused more deaths than the 2015 earthquake, with over 11,500 recorded and likely many more considering issues around reporting and testing. The national, government-run domestic violence hotline has had more than double the reports of domestic violence since 2019. Of the families Asha Nepal supports, 90% have lost their main source of income and here in Australia, COVID-19 completely disrupted the funding model we relied on to support our partners, Asha Nepal and Samunnat. The situation was, and in many ways remains dire and urgent. But despite all the challenges of 2020/21, there have been many cracks where the light has shone through. The grit and practical optimism demonstrated by our partner didis (a respectful term for older sister in Nepali), in the face of incredible adversity has served as a lodestar for the Board and the wider Project Didi community. Our response was to focus our energy on adapting our funding approach to address the immediate needs of our partners in Nepal. Incredibly, our doubling down in efforts, coupled with our supporter’s enormous generosity meant: We were able to increase our funding support from one Family Based Care home to two Six children graduated from Grade 12 and three children from Grade 10 18 tablets were provided to children to study remotely Six children were reintegrated with their biological families At our recent AGM, we reflected on the challenges of the past year for our partners in Nepal. There are now more fatalities from COVID-19 than the 2015 earthquake and the impact of livelihoods has been devestating. Reports of domestic violence to Nepal’s government-run domestic violence hotline have significantly increased since 2019. The inability to run in-person events and trips to Nepal has made fundraising challenging. We're proud that despite a tough year, we've been able to continue to provide vital funding for programs that have real impact for women and girls in Nepal. With your generosity, we've expanded our funding from one to two Family Based Care homes and supported new education projects.  The Project Didi team at our 2020-2021 virtual AGM. We focus on having deep, rather than wide, impact. In the past year, we supported:
These may seem like small numbers but we know family strengthening, education and safe employment breaks intergenerational cycles of poverty and violence. We know that a child that grows up in a safe family has stronger health, wellbeing and resilience and has greater opportunity to make informed decisions about their future. We also know that a girl with an education has a decreased risk of domestic violence, greater decision-making power and is more likely to educate her own children. Our founders, Leonie, Sarah and Fiona, have worked for over 15 years to support independent, dignified and bright futures for women and girls in Nepal. They met in Nepal and formed Project Didi in 2014. They chose the name Didi, which is a respectful term for older sister in Nepali, as it reflected the supportive, collaborative role they wanted to take in Nepal, one working in partnership with local organisations. Do you have any dreams for Project Didi and our work in Nepal? I hope Project Didi's work in Nepal will continue to grow and be able to help more of those in need. I would also like to see us develop programs that support self-sufficiency and independence. In Australia, I hope we can raise more awareness and support for the issues facing many women and girls in Nepal. Why is volunteering important to you? I am very fortunate to be living in Australia with the luxuries and freedoms that we sometimes take for granted. There are so many causes in the world that need support and it can sometimes be overwhelming to know where to start. We don't need to change the world but if we can each do something small - that will lead to greater change.  Leonie on one of Project Didi's women's trips to Nepal with Mt. Everest in the background. Sue Barmos Seeing the Everest trek advertised as empowering travel for women, I thought I’d better go before I get too rickety and humourless. It was good to be free, to fill up on pure air, be inspired and walk. I adore monasteries, singing, eating momos, watching Sherpa and their pack animals tackle the days with tenacity. With the challenge of altitude, appreciating the hard lives of others was ever present. Project Didi helps young women who need protection from violence, sexual abuse and support to be self- determining. Climbing escarpments of fear, discrimination and repression is exhausting. Asha Nepal work tirelessly to help women who have no family support. I’m glad our donation really helps. Housemothers are kind. Solidarity and safety their strength.  Whilst Nepal’s sights and sounds are tantalising, a visual surprise around every Kathmandu corner, the real life of cultural constraints and customs makes a tattoo. Take your laundry for washing, there’s a brothel above… women with no choice. A lovely bangle is made by a family sitting on the dirt floor of their very hot hut. A beautiful carpet made by women in a shed, fibres and stale air for breath. A man selling a flute no one wants. He shouts his frustrations. Indelible memories of shrines and marigolds and at Asha house; hands inked in henna. Our lady powered walking group were delightful, interesting, supportive, funny, energetic, grateful. A gang of Didis. Ang Dami Sherpa spoke of running from Everest to Namche Bazaar. In May 2013 she was 3 months pregnant and won the women’s marathon challenge for a second time. Incredible as this feat is, she has recently lost her husband, runs a guest house, treks 4 hours to visit us, she is a gutsy gazelle and I’m in awe.
Education is essential to ending gender-based discrimination and poverty. For the women and girls we work with, survivors of trafficking and abuse, education strengthens their agency, empowering them to take part in the decisions that affect their lives.  In Nepal, only 3% of girls complete upper secondary school. “Through lower expected earnings in adulthood and higher fertility over their lifetime, a lack of education for girls leads to higher rates of poverty for households, increasing the risks of trafficking. This is due to both losses in income and higher basic needs from larger household sizes. ” “Women with primary education earn 14 to 19% more than those with no education at all. Yet women with secondary education may expect to earn almost twice as much, and those with tertiary education three times as much as those with no education. Women with a secondary education are less likely to state that they do not have enough money to buy food versus women with primary education or less." Secondary/tertiary education also improves:
 Throughout their schooling, Asha Nepal provides the young women in their care with tailored support, important in preventing the high school dropout rates for young women and girls in Nepal. Once in grade 10, the girls start selecting courses, with Asha providing guidance, employment pathways and options for further education.
We asked two girls at Asha Nepal about their school experience, and what education means to them.
That's why, on World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, we've signed Freedom United's My Story, My Dignity Pledge.
Raising awareness of the lived experience of modern slavery and human trafficking is essential if we are going to make progress to end it, but too often, survivors' stories are told with disempowering language and images.
These images and lanuage can unintentionally create or reinforce stereotypes and further victimise survivors.
We commit to the principles of the My Story, My Dignity pledge:
How are we putting the pledge into practice?
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Project Didi Australia is committed to restoring hope, dignity and independence to women and girls in Nepal, who have experienced trafficking and gender-based violence, through trauma-informed care, family strengthening and reintegration, education and employment pathways.
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ABN 68 320 267 277
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