Featured Blogs

Blog July 8, 2025
Fieldwork beyond data: Building connections, finding stories
The Participatory Engagement of City Communities Against Non-Communicable Disease Risk in Bangladesh and Nepal (PECAN) Project is an implementation research initiative based on the principles of citizen science. It aims to equip policymakers, practitioners and citizens with evidence-based, equitable and sustainable strategies for ...

Blog June 10, 2025
Strengthening Health Policy and System Research Institutions: A multi-country initiative
Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) investigates the functioning of health systems, policy formulation processes, and identifies how systems and policies can be optimized for better health outcomes. This investigation is often led by Health Policy and Systems Research Institutions (HPSRIs), who play a pivotal role in the HPSR ...

Blog May 15, 2025
Improving Maternal and Neonatal Health Indicators in Kapilvastu Municipality
Background Kapilvastu Municipality faced a persistent challenge on Maternal and Neonatal health (MNH) indicators, despite having 50-bedded provincial hospital at the territory of the municipality. Municipality struggled with low antenatal care (ANC) check-up rates and a higher number of home deliveries compared to other local ...

Blog April 23, 2025
Field Realities of Research Beyond Data
What does it take to become a good health researcher? For sixteen fresh public health graduates, the answer came not from textbooks, but from their experience of data collection. Tasked by HERD International, these young professionals stepped into the field to gather the data for an ongoing research on health system strengthening ...

Blog April 16, 2025
A Lifeline for the People: Free Ambulance Service in Suddhodhan Rural Municipality
In many parts of Nepal, particularly in the rural areas, getting to a hospital during an emergency can be a daunting task. Long distances, poor roads, and lack of transport are among the most common barriers, especially for people without the means to procure a vehicle in a timely fashion. In Suddhodhan Rural Municipality of ...
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Blog August 17, 2018
My test in the pretest
A gloomy monsoon morning in Kathmandu, the first day of methodologies’ pretesting of CARAN project at Chandragiri Municipality. We were to start early, as agreed with the participants from the community so as not to disturb their ...
Blog July 19, 2018
Fogo Process in Locally-led Developments
What is Fogo process? How does it contribute to local level developments? I have been talking about participatory video since my first blog. In this blog, lets talk about its inception and how it has changed development ...
Blog July 5, 2018
So why is CARAN important?
HERD International is currently implementing CARAN (Community Arts against Antibiotic Resistance in Nepal) project. It is an important project because antibiotic resistance is a growing issue in both Nepal and Worldwide. The ...
Blog July 5, 2018
Journey from Camera to CARAN
“What? You want to study film making?” was the first reaction from my father when eight years ago I told him I wanted a career in filmmaking. My father gave me a very good lesson that day on choosing my future ...
Blog June 26, 2018
Pain of living outside the radar of Universal Health Coverage
Ram Bahadur (name changed) 13, studies in grade 5 in a school near his home. His parents are both labor workers and are employed on a daily wage basis in construction sector. The family representing marginalized community resides in ...
Blog June 22, 2018
What can we do and what is being done about antibiotic resistance?
In my last blog I talked about antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, why it is such an important issue and therefore why CARAN was important. In this blog I will be talking about what makes the situation worse and what we can ...