Yang-Ward Foundation is a US-based 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that seeks to empower underprivileged single women by engaging them in revenue-generating activities such as cash crop production, poultry farming and goat farming. For cash crop production, these single women are provided with seeds, money and technical support, which are monitored by Yang-Ward Foundation and the partnered local school on a monthly basis to oversee their progress. The profit generated from these activities after paying workers’ wages are invested to improve the local schools by expanding libraries and establishing scholarships to support underprivileged local girl students. For poultry farming and goat farming projects, Yang-Ward Foundation provides training and seed funding to implement various projects whiles partnered local schools help oversee progress. So far Yang-Ward Foundation has launched one cash crop project, one poultry farming project and 8 different goat farming projects in eastern and northern parts of Nepal.
OUR TEAM
CEO: FundProVo
Partner: Ideaworks
Yangmali Sahadev Rai is the Founder and President of Yang-Ward Foundation. He completed his schooling from the National School of Nepal. He then went to the United World College of India to finish his International Baccalaureate diploma. Yangmali completed his undergraduate degrees from Westminster College, USA graduating in 2014 with honors in International Relations and Diplomacy, International Business, and Transnational Studies. He then went on to earn a Msc degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2015..
Prior to starting his own venture, Yangmali Rai worked as a research assistant and eventually became a partner in the software company Ideaworks, Inc., based in Columbia, Missouri. Yangmali also worked as a campus representative for the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U). Because of his work with Yang-Ward Foundation to empower single in rural Nepal, Yangmali Rai has been featured in various newspaper and television shows.
Yangmali Sahadev Rai
Founder and President
President and CEO: Ideaworks
Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology: University of Missouri
Dr.Edward Brent received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 1976 followed by two postdoctoral fellowships, one in systematic studies of interaction at Minnesota and one in information systems at the University of Missouri. He has taught at the University of Missouri, Columbia since 1976 and currently is Chair of the Department of Sociology Dr. Brent is the founder and president of Idea Works Inc., a company that develops software for intelligent text analysis, and co-founder of three other technology companies. He was awarded the University of Missouri Faculty Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2013.
Dr. Edward Brent
Vice-President and Secretary
Born and brought up in Nepal, Anju Khatri is a web developer who is currently working as a Freelancer. Ms Khatri completed her Bachelors in IT from Sikkim Manipal University which is located in Gantok, India. After her Bachelors, she went on to finish her PgD in IT Management from the CECOS London College, UK. Ms. Khatri is very much involved with social activities and loves photography, travelling and cooking.
Anju Khatri
Board of Directors
Co-Founder and Managing Director: Paths Education Hub
Niraj Rajbhandari completed his Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Kantipur City College. Previously, he was worked as a lead UI/UX engineer with Leapfrog Technology and Grafi offshore Nepal. Niraj has extensive experience as a UI/UX designer under his belt along with project management, client communication, and front-end development skills.
Niraj brings project planning and management experience to Yang-Ward Foundation which are crucial aspect of Yang-Ward’s work. Niraj’s experience as a leader of many international projects during his time with various IT companies will be helpful in implementing future Yang-Ward projects.
Niraj Rajbhandari
Board of Directors
Dr. Abdoulaye Bah is a Professor of Sociology, Head, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of the Center for Behavioral Health and Resiliency at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. He has worked closely with the United States Army to develop behavioral health training tools addressing suicidal ideation and behavior among troops. As a result of his work, some unique tool for raising awareness and strengthening self-efficacy, were created and adopted for an Army-wide distribution during the stand down in March 2009 and in October 2010. He was also instrumental in the development of the Life Preservation Index a risk assessment tool that can be used to identify and compute the prevalence rate of at risk individuals for suicidal behavior in a group. In his capacity as a Director of the Center he has conducted many projects providing research and services to the military and has received over $ 5,000,000.00 in funding from the US Army.
Dr. Abdoulaye Bah
Board of DirectorsHow it all BEGAN
Story Behind Yang-Ward Foundation
Yangmali Sahadev Rai was very involved with social work from an early age. He attended the national school of Nepal, Budhanilkantha School, where he met fellow students from across the country. When Yangmali Rai was finishing his boarding school, Nepal was undergoing a 10 year long civil war which killed thousands of people. As a result of this Maoist insurgency, many Nepali women became widows, essentially making them a victim of a culture where single women are ostracized. Often, when these women become widows, they are abandoned by their families, society, and government as a whole. Rai witnessed first-hand the struggle of single women when he first visited the remote part of eastern Nepal to establish a library in the local school.
This trip to the eastern part of Nepal was a life-changing experience for Rai. He visited a remote village in the Bhojpur district. There he found many facilities we take for granted such as drinking water, electricity, toilets, and sanitation were missing. Mr. Rai immediately began planning to help these single women to overcome poverty and the societal prejudice against them.
After talking to single women in the local area, he determined that the best way to help them was by engaging them in revenue generating activities such as cash crop production. As the saying goes, “easier said than done”, Rai didn’t have the funding to turn his dream into a reality. Rai applied for various external funding competitions where he was turned down many times and was told his plan of helping these single women was ambitious and impractical.
Determined to help these single women, Rai kept sending out his grant applications to various organizations. But that all changed when a fellow student at Westminster College, also from Nepal, told Rai about the Social Venture Challenge (SVC) by the Resolution Project in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) – an initiative founded by the 42nd US President, Bill Clinton, to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. With more than 600 applicants representing all 50 US states and 75 countries, Rai was the only individual applicant and didn’t think he had a chance. To know more about CGI U, please visit https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative/meetings/cgi-university
But when Chelsea Clinton announced his name at a special ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri, Rai had beat out 150 other semi-finalists to win the $9000 seed money from the Resolution Project, Rai said “that was surreal and he was ecstatic”.
The Resolution Project Inc., is a U.S. based non-profit dedicated to fostering youth leadership development around the world through collaborative social entrepreneurship. Yangmali Rai received a Resolution Fellowship in 2013 and The Resolution Project continues to provide dynamic, hands on support, including, mentorship, access to world-class resources and membership in a community of peers. To know more about the Resolution Project , please visit www.resolutionproject.org.
“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” ― Maya Angelou