Nepal Pilot Programme Opens Its Doors in Kathmandu

ILSI's Nepal pilot programme formally opened this week at the organisation's new country office in Lalitpur, Kathmandu, marking the start of member registration and pre-departure orientation services for workers preparing to travel to ILSI's four pilot corridors.

What the pilot involves

The pilot programme combines contract review and pre-departure orientation delivered in partnership with Himalayan Development Cooperative and Kathmandu Valley Skills Trust, membership registration linking workers to the appropriate destination-country helpline and legal panel, and a reintegration pathway for returning workers developed with the same implementing partners.

"This is where the Home-to-Home model becomes real for the first families it will serve," said Amina Osei-Bright, ILSI's Director of Programmes. "Every process we run here in Kathmandu has been designed around what we heard directly from returnee workers and their families during our design phase."

Phased rollout

The pilot will initially prioritise districts with a long history of labour out-migration, working through community outreach events and partner-office registration points rather than requiring workers to travel to Kathmandu itself for every step. Registration will expand corridor by corridor, beginning with the Nepal-GCC and Nepal-Malaysia corridors given the volume of workers travelling those routes, before extending to Nepal-Korea and Nepal-UK registration in subsequent phases.

ILSI's Director of Legal Protection, Suresh Bahadur Adhikari, noted that the pilot's design places particular emphasis on catching problems before departure. "The single most powerful moment we have to protect a worker is before they sign a contract, not after something has already gone wrong," he said. "That is why pre-departure orientation and contract review sit right at the centre of this pilot."

ILSI expects to publish an initial baseline brief on the pilot's early operating context in the coming months, and will report on registration progress through this news page as milestones are reached.