Meet a Changemaker (6)

Monday, 15 December 2008 | posted by Matt_BC
Activism, Guildford 2009, Human Rights

Hi everyone, I am Nimesh, 18 years old and I live in Nepal.

I am writing this post from Dolakha- a relatively remote north-eastern part of Nepal, and about 200 kilometers away from the country capital, Kathmandu. Araniko Highway, the road leading to this place, is very narrow(a feeder road!) and every time two vehicles face each other head-on, they are stuck for at least a couple of minutes before seeing each other through. Halfway through my journey, as I continued to enjoy the geographical blessings of this country, my mobile phone made a beep sound and showed absolute zero network. I saw young kids carrying heavy loads on their back- those people who have appeared to have dropped out of school and busted their education, and also saw those ‘active' population, jobless, vacantly staring at us as we passed by. I later reached my ultimate destination Jiri after more than 8 hours of pot-holed drive, quite amazed to have reached this beautiful place but disappointed on the overall.

It was not the rigorous traveling experience that caused it. Rather, it was because I was reminded, once again, of the dire straits of this country, and how much it will still take to change its status quo and be a developed country - the next ‘Japan' or ‘Switzerland'.

Nepal has, most fortunately, been bestowed with great geographical wonders- we house Mount Everest, we have the most unique and rewarding natural geographic diversity, and we have the potential to produce more than 83000 Mega Watt of electricity. All these gifts, if used to the fullest, can make Nepal swiftly climb the ladders of Human Development. But here we are, still downtrodden and ranked in the 140s in the Human Development Report. It's apparent that the attitude of Nepalese people needs change. We need to change and require a revolution, not in forms of mere lofty, naïve words but in forms of commitment and action.

But the crucial question- where do we start from?

As a student studying in the national, and arguably the best school in Nepal, I thought it became my ultimate responsibility to think of the problems faced by other educationally underserved children in the country. I reached a conclusion that quality, effective education was the pre-requisite for the development of any country, and having known about the crude realities of the inefficient, ‘wasteful' education system of Nepal where learning means nothing more than ‘memorizing' the course, I, along with some of my friends got together and came up with the concept of ‘Minimally Invasive Education in Nepal'. Minimally Invasive Education project was designed in such a way that it encouraged the students to be more interactive, constructive and productive in the class- which would ultimately increase the educational efficiency as well as increase enrolment rate and the literacy rate of Nepal through quality education (read: achieving educational paradigm shift). As the Team Leader of the project, I look after everything under the MIE Program in general, including managing volunteers for our ‘Mentor and Tutor' program- a special program under the MIE project that allows senior student volunteers to visit the project school every day and act as mentors and academic tutors to their junior friends (we now have over 35 student volunteers).

The Minimally Invasive Education Project is funded by Save the Children USA and officially recognized by Nepal's Department of Education as a new endeavor in the field of education in Nepal. The Asia Foundation in Nepal donated books and resources worth more than US$ 4000 under its ‘Books for Asia' program to our project. We are now into the eighth month of the project, and we have been offered valuable advices and guidance by many people, especially Ms. Lina Menarad, Community Service Coordinator at Whitman College USA. Recently, Meg Fleming, with a very impressive background in the sector of education, has offered to help us carry the momentum of the project forward. All these events have really been very rewarding for my project. I hope that one day; our success will prove very beneficial to Nepal too.

During the past few months, I have also been really very fortunate to have established contacts with Nepalese Youths living abroad. Together with Dr.Pukar Malla, now based in Silicon Valley, USA, I am now embarking on a research on ‘Undergraduate Education system in Nepal'- where we will make a detailed study of why undergraduate education is failing in Nepal, and will propose solutions to it and pass on to related stakeholders. To this date, I have also attended various interaction sessions with our political leaders as well as with international donor agencies and have co-authored a cover story for a youth magazine on ‘Youth and Politics in Nepal: what went right, what went wrong".

Last August, Drama Club of my school and the United Nations Office in Nepal jointly organized "Mock UN Session and Panel Discussion" for students of Kathmandu Valley. I served in the capacity of the Coordinator for the program. The Mock UN session was aimed at making the students in Nepal acquainted with the finesse and grandeur of international issues followed in diplomatic channels. The Panel Discussion, on the other hand, was based on the theme "Role of United Nations in Nepal' and the session was moderated by Mr. Robert Piper- the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Nepal. I must mention here that throughout the course of organizing the event, Mr. Ram Babu Shah, the Officer-In-Charge of UN Information Center in Nepal and Mr. Robert Piper were very supportive and trusted our ‘young' team whole heartedly. This trust on the youth generation is something that we rarely find here in Nepal. Their belief really boosted our morale and now, also considering the success of the program, we have planned for "Inter- Nation Mock SAARC Session" on August 2009- our next level program to the "Mock UN Session and Panel Discussion."

Through all these experiences, I have known that working on a team to achieve something that, at first, may appear difficult will not appear too difficult to accomplish later. I take our Guildford 2009 meeting as an opportunity to work together in mutual solidarity for a cause, for our future, for a better tomorrow...

Can't really wait...