When I was small, my mother made sure that I excelled in my studies. She even kept a girl in our home as a domestic worker, so that I didn’t have to work much and could concentrate in my studies. But it didn’t seem right to me even then. I would teach her whatever I learnt at school just like my teacher would with chalk and duster. It was our playtime as well as studying time. It was perfect, I thought. Another disparity I felt in my family was between me and my brother. He was sent to a more expensive school as my parents felt he would take care of the family in future. It’s not that I didn’t like the school I and my other brother were studying in; I wanted to study in his school because the teachers there didn’t give much punishments to students, unlike our teachers. My parents thought that since I got good grades in SLC I would take up Science in +2 and pursue to become a doctor. But I chose to do Journalism in my Bachelor’s instead with dreams of bringing change in my societ…

Born in Dharan, I grew up in a village in Morang where there were no electricity and telephone facilities until I was in fourth or fifth standard. There were narrow roads, handful of literate people and only few households in neighborhood. We used to see wolves and foxes in rainy seasons and even wild elephants sometimes. I got good grades during my Bachelor’s. However, I was not in the category of so-called brilliant students in my school. Our teachers were very biased; they used to treat us according to the percentage we scored in our exams. I remember an incident from my fifth standard when one of my teachers punished me just because I was weak in Maths and I couldn’t understand the way he taught the subject. I hated studying. Due to this reason, I wanted to quit my studies but I persevered and passed my SLC with good marks. Life after that hasn’t been easy, either. I joined in Government College for my +2, which was far away from my home. My father was abroad to earn for the…

The word ‘entrepreneurship’ always fascinated me when I was in college even though I never had a clear definition of what entrepreneurship was. Slowly, I started to realize that being an entrepreneur needs a lot of hard work, passion and knowledge. In my intermediate level, I took commerce as my major course thinking it would help me achieve my career goals. Then I joined MSU (Mountain State University) in the US for bachelor’s. Even though I got admitted for fall semester, August of 2007- in a sunny day, I was freezing from inside. Since I came from a different culture and academic setting, I had very little knowledge about education system of the US. But it was my determination and dedication toward my studies that helped me overcome all the difficulties and barriers in between. After graduating from MSU in 2013, I returned back to Nepal. I somewhere had good feelings that I now could live life that I dreamt of as I had an international degree. But things were different than …

I grew up in Kathmandu in a typical joint family, where my grandparents would give me money for chocolates every morning before going to school and cover for me when I screwed something up. Growing up wasn’t difficult. I was sent to a prestigious private school to study. My siblings and I were highly pampered. However, we had to face financial difficulties at one point in life, which taught me how to deal with it; I’ve learned to distinguish between my wants and my needs. I’m a sensitive person. Whenever I watch a sad documentary or read a sad book, I feel very bad. An incident that struck me the most was when I saw street kids at New Road while I had gone there with my mom. I was also a kid back then. Their clothes were dirty and torn and they were running around other people asking for money and food. When I asked about where their parents were, my mom replied that they must not have any, and even if they did they didn’t care enough. That incident had made quite an impact upon…

One day, as I was returning home on a micro bus from my college, I saw a little boy who was working as a conductor in that vehicle. The boy was barely 10 years’ old. I started talking with my friends about that boy who should actually be going to school instead of working. An aunty inside the vehicle, who overheard us, said that there was no solution to this problem because the kids themselves chose this path. They don’t want to study and that’s why they are in this profession, she said. I was shocked by her answer. She also informed that she was a social worker who worked for the betterment of such children and she had tried a lot to bring such children under proper care but they ran off in some days as they wanted to earn money and live freely. Hearing this made me sad and I thought a lot on how could I change this situation. I felt helpless. I knew education is an important part of building the society and the nation. But I never liked the education system of our country as it w…

Both my parents used to work in offices. So my sister and I had to live in our mamaghar (maternal home) so that we were taken care of properly. It was a joint family where we got love and care of our grandparents. My school was about 30 minutes’ walk away from the house. Later on, we started living with our parents but we had to change our schools almost every year due to mom’s or dad’s frequent office transfers. From fourth grade onwards, I started going to a private school but it had a Nepali medium education. My English was better than other friends because of my good English base in previous schools. Some of my friends who were weak in English used to ask me to let them copy my homework and in exchange they would offer locally grown fruits like pears and cherries. As I had to change so many schools, I could tell that quality of education differed in each of them. In grade eight, I entered a very renowned English medium school in Jhapa. At first, it was very difficult for me t…

I was raised by a single mother. Despite our family being financially unstable, I worked hard and finished my schooling and Bachelor’s. Since I have always wanted to help others in need, I had chosen to pursue Social Work for my undergraduate studies. When I was doing my Bachelor’s, I got to work with different organizations working for the welfare of children and youth and this passion to work with such people led me to TFN. One of the most fruitful experiences was working as a Trainee at Association for the Protection of Children (APC) Nepal. I got to work closely with street children. We had provided non-formal education to the children and engaged them in fun activities like art and indoor games. Each and every child I worked with was so special and I could see that they had so much potentials to excel in their lives if they got the platform. Again, working as a trainee at Children and Women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH), I had to prepare a media monitoring report …

My parents have worked very hard to provide me with the best education and basic luxuries of life in Kathmandu. I never had to worry about money for my studies and I scored good grades, too. But I remember not being supported while I played guitar, wrote songs, sang, got too involved in sports, and everything I did which they thought didn’t support my academics. I turned up to my teachers for a much needed pat on my shoulder when I achieved something outside my class, because as a kid they were someone I looked up to apart from my family and it was disheartening to find that teachers felt no different. It may seem as any urban teen’s predicament towards life during in those awkward years, but things stayed the same during the early twenties as well. I was questioning every belief, values, norms and tradition but I had never been a rebel in my entire life, never swayed from the conventional image of a “good kid”. But when you are doing everything you can and you still can’t find ha…

Both my parents didn’t get to study in their childhood due to economic constraints in their families. So, both of them knew the value of education. As they faced many problems in their childhood and couldn’t fulfill most of their wishes, they wanted to get those wishes fulfilled through us; me and my two siblings. Unfortunately, my mother met with an accident when I was in school. After spending 13 days in a hospital she left us forever. Our happy world turned upside down. But we had to move on. Despite financial difficulties, my father always made sure my siblings and I had good education. It was he who encouraged me to join BBA, something that I always wanted to pursue. When I look back at my undergrad days, I feel very proud. Those 4 years gave me chances to build a lot of confidence in me. Those years gave me confidence to speak up. The girl who used to feel shy to speak or raise her voice now can give a speech in public in front of many people. Most importantly, my undergrad …