Backward Society Education (BASE) is a nonprofit non-governmental organization that works with Tharu in Western Nepal to fight illiteracy, bonded labor from the Kamaiya system, and a number of other issues in the region.

The eventual founder of BASE, Dilli Bahadur Chaudhari, formed a group called the 4-H Club which was funded through intermediaries by USAID as a forum for discussing agricultural techniques with Tharu farmers.

[3][4] After trying to intensely lobby the government to free people stuck in the Kamaiya system, Chaudhari decided to start protests instead.

[6] After hearing the news, BASE went door to door in Western Nepal to tell bonded laborers about their newly decreed freedom and helped to enforce the new law, and the Nepali Times noted at the time that BASE's Dilli Bahadur Chaudhari helped to "spark off the movement to free kamaiyas".

[4][5] Despite this success, less than half of the families that were freed from bonded labor have received government plots of land, and many still live off of less than $1 a day.