What is Kathmandu but a bowl full of dreams? My parents, like so many others, entered this city to fulfill their dream; dream to give us exposure to different opportunities available here. In this safe harbor I spent my childhood, my education unhindered by the harshness of our financial turmoil. I had the freedom to education, to choose my beliefs and opinions. With this freedom came the responsibility of treating others with fairness and being open to new ideas. I saw the world as a classroom with so much to understand. I pursued Environmental Engineering in my Bachelor’s level since I’m very much concerned about the environment. But I was never satisfied with just the theoretical knowledge we gained from our textbook. I wanted to implement what I learned. I even worked as an Executive Member in Forum for Environmental Conservation And Management (FECAM) and participated in various environmental programs conducted by the forum. We were engaged in plantation and awareness programs…

When I was in Grade 5, I had a friend who studied in the same grade but in a different school. He used to go to a public school while I went to a private school. We used to do our homework together. But he was very weak in Maths so I always had to help him in the subject. He used to say that most of his friends were not so good in Maths either. I wondered how that was possible; the Math teacher was the same in his school and mine. We slowly realized that the teacher behaved differently with them because it as a public school where there were no strict regulations for teachers. While in our school, he worked harder, checked our homework regularly and even took extra classes if needed. The case was the same with another teacher who took Nepali classes in Grade 10. I’ve always wanted to eradicate such inequalities in public and private schools. I myself have come from a very rural area of Kapilvastu district where there were no schools close by. Due to this, many children there have b…

Why TFN? Two significant incidents in my life made me feel so certain that I should take up the fellowship. Incident 1 After my SLC, I started giving tuition classes to a neighbor’s son. One evening, when I was teaching him, a small boy (from Dalit community) came with books in his hand and said-“Gyanu dai, ma pani padchhu ni” (Gyanu is my pet name). He sat next to me, opened his books and showed interest in studying. I asked him to come regularly. In my neighborhood, there are many Dalit families. They are still very poor and earn their living by selling firewood in Bhutanese refugee camp. So I started helping other Dalit children as well. My mother is from typical Bhramin family so she didn’t like what I was doing. Despite this, I helped them for about two months. Many of the parents actually had no money to pay for their children’s education. Incident 2 After I completed my Bachelor’s level, I was in Jhapa to visit my family. One morning, I was drinking tea with some of …

I did my Bachelor’s in Business Administration which gave me exposure to a lot of theoretical knowledge on business and entrepreneurship. I even participated in Ncell App Camp, an app competition in which my group was selected as one of the Top 6 finalists out of 150 groups. I was the business developer of the group and we had pitched the idea of a Book Hub, an app for purchase, sale, exchange and donation of books. Similarly, I participated in Business Plan Competition organized by my college in which eight colleges had participated. Our group was awarded the third position. In the competition, we had worked on the database management system useful for colleges in keeping records. My father has been in the banking sector for over 30 years. Even I was encouraged to work in a bank after finishing my Bachelor’s. However, I didn’t want to do a 9-5 job in the city. I didn’t want the monotonous life where all one needs to care about is completing the same kind of task every single day. …

I was born in a small village in western Nepal. While studying in Grade 6, there were daily attacks and violence by the Maoists. Plagued by the Maoist insurgencies, my parents decided to take me to India for my further studies. Initially, it was very difficult for me to adjust in the new country, where students were from different backgrounds. I had a tough time with the new language, subjects, friends and teachers. But my mother took care of everything. She used to come to school every day to drop me off and stayed the whole day in school making sure that I felt comfortable and studied properly in class. I could thus slowly adapt to the environment. I used to go out of the station for inter-school competitions and I always met kids from the far-western part of Nepal working in hotels. They were merely 12 years old. I really wanted to do something for them but I could do nothing. During my undergrad years in India, I worked with three different clubs. I got an opportunity to g…

I grew up in Mangalbazaar, an overcrowded city center, blessed with beautiful heritages and adorned by ancient crafts,. I spent my childhood running around the Patan premises and always coming back home with injuries of some sort. However, we were five people crammed into one small room so in order to live more spaciously, we moved to Gwarko and shared home with my uncles’ families. Life in the new place was much easier but we faced financial difficulties. I envied children whose parents bought them everything they wanted. But seeing kids in streets who’d scout through garbage to find food and had no home, I learned how fortunate I was to have a home and a loving family. We were all good pupils at school so scholarship programs helped us a great deal with our tuition fees. After graduating, I decided to join Bachelor's in Humanities. An eye opening journey was when I travelled to Dhading with some friends. We'd volunteered to transport food supplies and clothing to the earthqu…

As I was doing my masters, I got a chance to work as a communication and life skill teacher in an organization where I was supposed to teach children about communication skills. While teaching I came across two children Apekshya and Hardik that I got a lot of inspiration from. Apekshya, a 12 year-old girl was shy when it came to participating in communication activities. During one of the lessons, I insisted that she speak up in class. She was very shy and resisted. When I had another communication class later that week, I asked who wanted to come in front and speak up. She was the one among many to raise hands. She first shared that she felt ignored in class most of the time as she had no close friends. Then she talked about the cartoons she liked the most. I asked the class if they found her friendly and everyone unanimously said she was. I saw a spark of happiness in her eyes. Later, I saw her with new friends. I felt accomplished as I could bring happiness in my student’s life. …

I’m the youngest among eight siblings, born in a remote village of Parsa district. In the place that I come from, getting a good education is beyond the imagination of many individuals like me. Despite farming being the only source of income, my father made sure he invested most of his income in our education so that we could have bright future. Add to that, being the youngest one in the family, I always got all the love and attention. However, seeing many other kids of my age not getting the privileges that I got made me feel very sad. An example was my cousin. He was a hardworking student and was doing good in class. But his family’s economic condition wasn’t good so he left school and went to Qatar to earn a living. That’s what many kids were doing in the village; going abroad as migrant laborers, going to the cities for working as domestic helpers or helping their parents in chores at home and in farming. I tried convincing my cousin to not go abroad but he didn’t listen to me.…

My mom always tells me, “Until and unless we don’t understand the meaning of hardship, we won’t be able to know the real meaning of life”. However, I was never deprived of anything. We are four siblings and I was given everything I wanted. Maybe this was because I used to stay in hostel and came home in long intervals. My parents worked really hard for our education and upbringing. After finishing my 12th grade, I left for India to pursue my Bachelor’s. It was my first time I flew out of the country. The moment I boarded, I burst into tears. I realized it would be very different from my home. When I reached there, everything was very new. Since I grew up watching Hindi movies and series, I could communicate well with people in Hindi but I had to struggle with many things. For the first two months, I survived eating Wada Pav (Potato patty with bread). Later I got used to spices and the climate. I had started going to college. It was less hard to adjust with people in college than th…

I was raised as the only child of my parents in a lonely home amidst the rice fields where all one could hear was the twar-twar of the frogs and gun-gun of fireflies in the nights. This perhaps is the reason why I grew up being a quiet, reserved and a shy girl. Even though I didn’t speak much, I was loved by almost all of my teachers as I was studious and good in class. However, during my Bachelor’s, I turned out to be the kind of person who could give solo dance performance in front of hundreds of people. I started actively participating in different activities in my university. Working with my university’s Red Cross, I participated in awareness programs on AIDS and blood donation programs. I was also a member of Amnesty International Kathmandu University Youth Network and worked on ‘My Body My Right’, an anti-harassment campaign. Besides, I had joined Kathmandu University Biotechnology Creatives and Kathmandu University Society of Art and Literature. I even volunteered in several…