LocationsSHE Cycle Solutions, a women-led initiative, with support from UNDP and GEF-Small Grants Programme, empowers women in the highland community of Laya in sustainable waste management practices.
In remote Laya, women take charge of waste management
August 18, 2025
Women of Laya, a highland communtiy in Gasa district that sits at 3,820 metres above sea level
UNDP/Karma Jamtsho
Women in Laya often gather for community activities, but these community gatherings are seldom about waste. In July, they came together yet another time, and this time around it was for an advocacy programme on waste management.
It was one of a series of such programmes that the SHE Cycle Solutions, a women-led Community-Based Organisation (CBO), carried out in this remote highland community in collaboration with the Gasa District Administration from 25 to 30 July. More than 400 community members, including women, students and young people, took part in these waste advocacy programmes.
Laya community was once almost a day's trek from the nearest road point. Now, it's just about two hours walk.
UNDP/Karma Jamtsho
Once a hard-to-reach community, Laya is now less than a two-hour walk from the nearest road point. While improved road access has brought about immeasurable benefits for the community, it has also meant a rise in waste issues as it has become easier for the community to buy imported packaged food, all of which comes packed in plastic.
With little or no awareness of the importance of managing waste properly, it is not uncommon to see the otherwise pristine highland landscapes tainted with wastes of all sorts disposed of carelessly. The absence of a formal waste collection system and limited waste management infrastructure adds to the challenge. It often results in open dumping and burning, leading to environmental degradation and threatening the health of the people and their livestock. Unsustainable waste practices such as this severely impact conservation efforts.
Chogyal Lhamo, Founder of SHE Cycles Solutions showing crafts made from plastic waste
The SHE Cycle Solutions is bent upon changing this. Empowered by grant support from UNDP, GEF-Small Grants Programme through the Community Development and Knowledge Management for the Satoyama Initiative (COMDEKS) Phase 4 funded by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and the Keidanren Nature Conservation Fund, this women-led CBO is going beyond raising awareness on waste management. It is helping the community to embrace circular economy. The goal is to turn Laya into a model highland community for women-led waste management solutions.
In line with this goal, the SHE Cycle Solutions team has rolled out a skilling programme from 16 August, teaching the women, students and youth in the community how to make crafts from plastic waste, turning waste into a livelihood skill, while preventing plastic leakage into the environment. The products made at this week-long skills training will be displayed at the 8th Royal Highland Festival in October.
Students of Laya Primary School check out a mat woven using plastic waste
The waste that the community collected during the week-long advocacy programme in July are being used as raw materials during the ongoing skilling programme targeting around 80 community members. These members will not only gain skills but also serve as waste management champions, playing a critical role in nudging mindset shifts necessary for embedding sustainable waste management practices into the community’s way of living.
“Our approach goes beyond advocacy and training. We help women form groups and establish themselves as community-based organisations, equipping them not only with waste management skills but also introducing financial literacy programmes,” said Chogyal Lhamo, Founder of the SHE Cycle Solutions. “We connect them with other SHE Cycle members to build a network of support and collaboration, and we guide them in branding their products so they see value in what they create and feel proud of it. This way, the initiative becomes more than just a one-time intervention; it becomes a movement that shifts mindsets."
Laya women show up in droves for the advocay programme on sustainable waste management practices
The Gup ( community head) of Laya, Tshewang, said this waste management project will go a long way in fostering sustainable waste management at the household as well as community level. “Managing waste comes with extra layers of challenges for communities like Laya that live high up in the mountain. This project is a much-needed intervention.”
Laya Gup (community leader) Tshewang
The SHE Cycle Solutions is one of the seven CSOs and CBOs being supported through COMDEKS Phase 4. With projects aimed at tackling waste challenge, such as the one being led by the SHE Cycle Solutions, to those that are aimed at protecting water sources, restoration of degraded pastureland to promoting highland youth entrepreneurship, the seven CSOs and CBOs are working with highland communities in four districts of Bumthang, Gasa, Trashigang and Thimphu, empowering them with initiatives to combat and adapt to the impact of climate change.
Bhutan’s remote, highland communities, spread across its northern border, are increasingly feeling the impact of warming global temperatures. From fast-melting glaciers, magnifying the risk of glacial lake outburst floods, to biodiversity loss, growing human-wildlife conflict, declining livelihood opportunities, pastoral land degradation affecting livestock production, and more, climate change is impacting all aspects of their lives and livelihoods.
For more information, please contact:
Dechen Wangmo, Communications and Partnerships Analyst, Email: dechen.wangmo@undp.org
Ugyen Lhendup, National Coordinator, GEF-Small Grants Programme, Email: ugyen.lhendup@unops.org
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