How this life affirming journey all began.
Fair Connections Foundation has been established by Sara Parker, who first visited Nepal in 1986.
She then lived and worked in Sikles, a remote mountainous village and taught English in the local school
working with the Annapurna Conservation Area Project for 6 months in 1992.
As a lecturer at LJMU (Liverpool John Moores University) Sara continued to engage in action research in Nepal with local people and developed links between her University in the UK with Nepal and Bangladesh in the area of education gender and development.
She founded Fair Connections (Global) CIC to develop and sell hand made fair trade educational resources to schools in the UK to help children learn about Nepal and Fair Trade.
These resources are provided to schools in Nepal to promote child friendly learning. By making classes more interactive engaging and fun – Fair Connections contributes towards improving the quality of education in Nepal.
“So much more can be done together – as long as connections are based on respect, genuine participation and a commitment to autonomous development. My experiences in Nepal over the past 30 years has taught me so much – and shown me that local people are best placed to define and implement projects to bring positive change in their own communities.
I've also seen first hand the positive impact that connections between communities and organisations and like minded individuals can bring.
I strive to act as a ‘lami’ (matchmaker) or connector/facilitator to help bring about positive changes”
"Nepal is here to change you, not for you to change it"
Meet Sara Parker
Connector and facilitator extraordinaire
With 30 years of experience of working and researching in Nepal Sara has a wide range of connections in Nepal from local communities to local and international NGOs to staff and students in Universities. Her work connections in Nepal provide the opportunity to share her experiences and listen to others helping to develop new exciting connections.
Sara is a Reader in Development Studies at Liverpool John Moores University – to read more about her academic work and links to Nepal including her publications visit here
A passion for development
Sara is passionate about action research and self defined autonomous development – in essence listening to and working with local people. This passion underpins her research and work with others. Currently the foundation is focusing on supporting those working towards improving the quality of education in Nepal.
Committed to the cause
To participatory development and ensuring that projects are supported and monitored by the local participants and that the successes and challenges of any development initiatives are shared – Sara firmly believes we learn more from out mistakes than out successes and feedback on the impact of interventions is crucial.
