Home: Bijalpura, Mahottari, Janakpur

Education: MA (English), Shree Ramswarup Ramsagar

I am from Bijalpura, Mahottari. I was born in Bijalpura and my childhood passed in my village until I completed the SLC. When I reflect on my past, I am proud of my past work with youth and women. I have established an organization (Youth Network for Peace and Development) for youth and have united young people who were otherwise moving toward joining armed groups. The network now has 52 youth clubs as members, from 52 VDCs of Mahottari District. While working with women I have supported women of Mahottari and Dhanusha district in uniting and establishing their own organizations. In Suga VDC of Mahottari District, there are women involved in Mithila Painting who are earning a good amount from that. I initially asked them what skills they had, and they explored Mithila painting skills. After that, they started working in the group with the seed grant I was able to provide.

I first learned about TFN through Facebook. I became very happy and excited as I looked deeper into the TFN website. I felt I had found a platform to fulfill my dream. I had been thinking about this matter and felt strongly that real problem of inequity in education stems from teachers of public schools not teaching in the way that the same teachers do when they go to teach in private schools. I was concerned about the decreasing morality of citizens of Nepal, and felt their love of society and nation was not high enough to fulfill the needs of our country.

I have been working in peace building through youth leadership. During my work with youths, I felt that the current need of our country is dedicated manpower. I couldn’t produce this from training the youth alone. My conclusion? That school children should be trained with all the skills I had been providing during leadership trainings to rural youth, who are trained at a level established by the existing system. But this level does not match the needs of our country. I started to think about opening a school but that could not be possible because of my poor economic condition. Then, I thought of opening a training center for the SLC passed students to train them for three months with necessary life and leadership skills, without disturbing their further careers. That could also not be possible because of the same causes. I started searching for organizations working toward the same goals. I came across Teach for Nepal and I applied for this fellowship to achieve my goals.

To transform students, I have to transform myself first. Therefore, I have participated in this training to shape myself based on what I want to achieve with my students. Training is fulfilling my expectations -- my time management skills are improving, and I am improving in my teaching style.

I am excited about this movement and with my participation. Further, as I have not worked in Pahadi societies, this is also a source of excitement.

After the Fellowship, I would like to continue working with youth. I would like to ultimately reach a position through politics that will allow me to implement my vision from a policy level.