The ‘Disaster Resilient Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Project’ is partnership project between SAHAMATI and Lutheran World Relief (LWR) and it is designed to enhance the employability and employment opportunities of youths and women from disaster prone areas to improve their economic competitiveness through on-farm and off-farm small and micro enterprises in collaboration with the on-going efforts of the Government of Nepal. The project aims to increase vulnerable youth’s and women's access to economic resources and opportunities.The project will enlarge the opportunities of women and youth in entrepreneurship, business continuity plan, getting employments, accessing financial services, entrepreneurship development skills and opportunities and market information. As skilled youths are more likely to get employed than unskilled, the project will collaborate with ongoing skill development programs by different agencies such as council for technical education and vocational training (CTEVT), Nepal Youth Council, Government of Nepal and other peer organizations. The project will promote youth, women and marginalized section of the community people led small and micro enterprises to increase their economic competitiveness and establish business networks and relationship with financial institutions and institutionalized markets impacted by natural disaster such as flood, droughts, landslides, cold-waves, pandemic etc.

The selected communities of different municipalities and districts are prone to natural disasters. SAHAMATI have long experiences to enable community for building their resilience to DRR, Early Warning System (EWS) and has provided necessary training and support to these local communities in the past, based on our internal assessment and Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) report, it has been found that economic capital are poor in the communities and they face serious issues for survival after hit by the disasters. We found the larger gap of sustainable income or economic capital of the community to cope and recover from the disasters. Due to poor livelihood opportunities and frequent disasters youth and women are the major victims in the community. Thus, this is very rational to support or building their capacities in the entrepreneurship for sustainable solutions of the above issues and challenges.

Disaster Resilient Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Project is designed with the aim to ‘increase knowledge and skills of youth and women for establishing resilient enterprises’, it has emphasized three key components: 1) strengthen youth and women led enterprises and their resilience to multiple hazards, risks and vulnerabilities present in their communities through business continuity plan; 2) improve the profitability of youth and women led small and micro enterprises considering the hazards, risk and vulnerabilities (resilient to the disasters) and 3) improve access to financial services when needed by their enterprise and gain financial resiliency. The project is implementing in 2 districts of Nepal, across 4 different municipalities/rural municipalities in Nawalparasi- BardaghatSusta West andGorkha districts. The Youth and Women led Resilient Entrepreneurship Development Project aims to reach 400 youth (200 each district) including women entrepreneurs directly and 3,750 indirect beneficiaries. The project is implementing from 25 January 2023 till 24 January, 2025, for two years. This project have major 3 outcomes, 9 outputs and 24 different activities.