“Namaste!  My name is Ganesh Ghale, and I am 33 years old. I live in Karang village, Dhading with my wife and four children. For the past ten years, I have been working as a village mason. I learned mason skills from my father. My friends and I used to follow the traditional techniques to construct village houses. The earthquake of 2015 was disastrous, as it damaged all the houses and common buildings in our village.”

Karang is in a very remote part of Ree VDC and very few organisations have shown an interest in helping earthquake survivors here. A local NGO called Himalayan Community Salvation Society (HIMS) Nepal, in partnership with UMN, provided seven days’ mason training to help village construction sector workers learn modern earthquake-resistant techniques of construction to. Ganesh says: “I got the chance to learn new skills of constructing earthquake resistant houses. It made me positive and hopeful that we can build village houses in a better way than before.”

He added: “The training not only gave us skills and new techniques, but also provided us with nine different types of construction instruments and tools.”

After the completion of the training, participants were tested with an exam and finally certified as skilled masons. The certificate will be a legal requirement for masons, for the construction of any building according to the policy of government of Nepal. 

Having received the training, Ghale is committed to use the skills he learned for the construction of shelters based on the principles of rebuilding better. He said: “I would like to express my gratitude to the trainers and facilitators. I am a license holder now, and I will have plenty of work in my own village. I will give up thinking of going overseas in search of work.”