The Clean Brick Initiative carried out a rapid gender need assessment (RGNA) and political economy analysis to address social, gender, and equity issues in brick kilns in Nepal. These studies were conducted in five districts spread across five provinces – Morang (Province 1), Rautahat (Province 2), Dhading (Province 3), Rupandehi (Province 5) and Kanchanpur (Province 7) – in consultation with the Federation of Nepal Brick Industries (FNBI). Findings from these studies will provide input to the action research design.

Workers and brick entrepreneurs from all five provinces agreed on the three major concerns that emerged from the studies:

1. Health conditions of male and female workers.
2. Education for workers’ children.
3. Lighting in the working and living areas.

Action research to address these concerns will involve three interventions – to be introduced in selected brick kilns at different locations in Nepal.

The potential partners for implementing the action research are:

1. Shikhar Insurance Co. Ltd – for health insurance.
2. Open learning Exchange Nepal (OLE-Nepal) – for the education modules.
3. ECOlogy+enterPRISE (ECOPRISE) – for solar-lighting.

These action research interventions are for the first year and will serve to generate evidence of the positive effect of improved working and living conditions on productivity gains for kiln entrepreneurs.

The main objectives of this workshop are:

1. To share and discuss proposed action research interventions prepared by implementation partners.
2. To discuss action research approaches and their scope.
3. To identify key implementation issues related to conducting of action research.

The expected outcomes of the workshop are:

1. Finalization of action research interventions with strategic guidance from the social unit within the FNBI.
2. Networking between the FNBI and potential action research implementation partners.