Contact us

For information on how you can get more directly involved please send us an email.

If you wish to make an online donation click the Take Action button, or mail a donation to our address. Kina is a registered Canadian Charity (854041886RR0001), a tax receipt will be issued.

  • info@kina.org
  • Kina Social Ventures
    1501 - 2628 Ash St
    Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 4L2

Who is Kina?

Our Mission – “Keeping Girls in School”

Kina Social Ventures is a registered Canadian charity (founded in 2003) dedicated to supporting at-risk girls and young women in Nepal. For more than two decades, we have provided education and healthcare support, currently reaching about between 60-100 students each year.

We take a long-term approach: no girl is admitted into the program unless we can commit to supporting her entire educational journey. While our early focus was on girls in grades 5–10, we have increasingly shifted toward post-secondary opportunities—universities, colleges, technical institutions, and targeted skills programs such as software development bootcamps. The goal is simple yet profound: to help young women secure sustainable careers that allow them to support themselves, their families, and their communities.

Our Model

  • Thoughtful Selection: Through an application and screening process, we identify girls who not only need financial support but also show the potential to succeed in their chosen path. This ensures that training and resources are used effectively and lead to measurable results.
  • Tailored Support: Assistance is customized to each girl’s situation, from covering school fees for orphans and single-parent families, to providing partial support where needed.
  • Holistic Care: Education is not just about tuition. We fund healthcare when medical needs arise, provide tutoring for national exams, and offer mentoring to help each girl reach her potential.
  • Ongoing Accountability: Student progress is carefully monitored through regular reviews, transcripts, and one-on-one mentoring. Leadership and guidance are also provided by senior program participants and our Nepal Country Director, Chokpa Sherpa—a role model with two master’s degrees in social and community development.

Our Philosophy

  • Slow is Fast: Education may take 5–10 years, but it is the fastest way to build social capital and break the cycle of poverty. An educated girl grows into a productive citizen, contributes to her community, and claims her place as an equal member of society.
  • Small is Big: By focusing on a relatively small group of girls and ensuring their success, we create ripples that extend across families, communities, and future generations. The result is empowerment that leads to poverty reduction, gender equality, and improved health outcomes.

In Summary

Kina’s work is about more than keeping girls in school—it’s about walking with them until they can stand independently, confident and capable. By combining long-term commitment, personalized support, and role models who inspire, we are helping to transform lives and communities in Nepal, one young woman at a time.

  • “86 million girls worldwide will not be in school today”

    Increasingly, the face of global poverty is a female one.  It is the girl who cannot read and the mother who cannot write her own name.  But the face of hope is also female.  It is the young woman who teaches her sister how to write her name and the mother who sends her daughters to school.  Access to quality education is the best tool we have in the fight against global poverty.   By educating girls and women, they become more productive citizens, contribute more to the development of their communities and take their rightful place as equal members of society.

  • Our Objective

    “Keeping girls in school”   Empowering girls to emerge as the future leaders in their communities, serving as role models and mentors to others girls, is one of the most powerful catalysts for positive social change.  These girls individual voices tell the full story - the real impact on their families and communities is a personal journal as varied as the girls we support. Currently, our work focuses in Nepal – a country with tremendous cultural wealth and natural beauty but insufficient resources to provide basic education and primary health care to its citizens, particularly girls and women in rural communities.

  • Our Team

    Board of Directors   Dave Wood After establishing a successful IT consulting business Dave took time off to travel the world, exploring and volunteering along the way.  As a result he has worked and lived in Sri Lanka, Nepal and throughout South Asia over the past decade. He has worked with grassroots rural organizations and large scale international development projects in the area of post secondary education (ADB and CIDA funded projects).  But it was while living and volunteer teaching in a rural Nepali mountain village in 2001 that he fully realized that he needed to do more – consequently the spark for Kina Social Ventures was born in 2002.   Ashish Gurung Ashish is a recent graduate from Simon Fraser University with a degree in Business Administration. He led a non-profit organization that impacted the lives of youths and businesses through entrepreneurial values. Ashish is of Nepalese descent – his father was the founder of the Nepal Cultural Society of BC – an organization promoting Nepali culture in Canada.  Ashish currently runs a video production company and is building a social media application.   Ben Ayers Ben is a writer, activist, climber, conservationist, and was the founder of Porters Progress, a Nepali NGO dedicated to improving working conditions of mountain porters in Nepal.  Ben worked intensively with porters in Nepal from 1998 for more than 10 years, spending almost 5 years in-country.  Ben is fluent in Nepali and has a bachelor’s degree from Bates College. He currently lives and works full time in Nepal for an international NGO, Dzi Foundation, as their Nepal International Program director.   Nepal Leadership and Partners   Ang Chokpa Sherpa | Nepal program administration In addition to working with Kina Social Ventures since 2003, Ang Chokpa has worked for a number of conservation and development organizations over the past ten years including the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee and Porters’ Progress of Nepal.  She is working as the Nepal director for an international NGO (Dzi Foundation) providing leadership in the delivery of rural community development projects.  In addition, she has earned two masters degrees in rural development and sociology.   The Small World (TSW) is a non profit and non government social organization established with the mission to make the world smaller by narrowing the gap between developed nations and third world countries like Nepal.  They strive to accomplish this by working together ,side by side, in locally driven sustainable community development projects that have a strong focus on children and women’s needs.  The goal is to improve the socio-economic standard of underserved communities where education, health, and basic infrastructure are restrained. They partner with international organizations & volunteers creating a unique opportunity to serve as members of the  global community.   Corporate Partners   Our partners are a major factor in our success. They provide us with much needed financial support to continue delivering our programs.   Should you be interested in becoming a partner please contact us for details.   Ouest Business Solutions, Vancouver Canada Slipstream Ventures, Vancouver Canada