Covid- 19 and its impacts in Khokana village of Lalitpur, Nepal

Abstract

This study has shed light on the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Khokana village of Lalitpur Metropolitan city as the pandemic has been affecting the entire world in every sectors of life. Culturally enriched village is purposefully taken as the area of study. The pandemic has impacted on the culture, economy, education, agriculture, human health and so on. At this juncture the focus of the global to local level mechanism have been focusing for vaccinating, mitigating, inventing and following the COVD-19 protocols. Locals have shown collaborated efforts with stakeholders to save lives and situation. It needs more effective collaborations among cultural entities and common people, national/ local crisis management mechanism and other related agencies. The cultural understanding and awareness of the enriched locals, prevailing health facilities and coping capacities of the village can mitigate the pandemic further risks as the past. In this scenario, it tries to dig out the COVID-19 impacts in the typical village. The study is based on qualitative research design with the primary data from field visit, interviews with local people, stakeholders (KII and FGD) and secondary data from the books, articles, magazines, internet, library etc. Collected data was interpreted in analytical and descriptive way to achieve the research objectives by analysis from collected information. The paper included the economic, cultural, traditional, psychological, environmental, agricultural, social and ethnographical impacts as the major findings based on the bitter past pandemic experiences of locals. This study finds that the COVID-19 impacts are somewhat distinct in Khokana village from other places because of roles of the cultural and traditional entities, communities’ roles and resilient capacities of the local people. The paper will be beneficial for the administrators, researchers, policymakers, crisis manager to understand the COVID19 impacts in Khokana village.

Key Words: COVID-19, Pandemic, Mechanism, Ethnography, Disaster