The moments
that shaped
the work.

The 2015 earthquake left thousands of families without homes.

Working with Helping Hands, the response initially focused on relief. But once the immediate emergency passed, another question became impossible to ignore:

How do people rebuild their lives?

The team set out to help rebuild homes in affected communities.

A small group of volunteers could build only a handful of houses at a time. If five or ten people were doing everything themselves, the number of homes they could complete would always be limited.

So the approach changed.

The volunteers built the first homes and taught the villagers how to build them.

In Dolkha, around 15 homes were completed in the first two to three days. But the real work was happening alongside the construction. The villagers were learning the process.

Once they knew how to do it, they started building themselves.

Then they taught their neighbours.

Helping Hands provided the materials. The community provided the labour, knowledge and ownership.

Within the following days, villagers were constructing their own homes and sending photographs and details of their progress back to the team.

The model multiplied.

These were not simply structures.

They were places where families could return, rebuild and begin their lives again.

The COVID-19 response began on the second day of the lockdown.

The concern was immediate.

Daily-wage workers depended on being able to work every day to put food on their tables. If people were asked to remain at home for days or weeks, many would quickly run out of the resources needed simply to survive.

So food supplies were arranged and distributed to people who needed them.

But providing relief during a pandemic was unlike ordinary relief work.

The country was trying to contain the spread of a highly contagious virus. Movement was restricted. Police were working to enforce the lockdown and prevent further contamination.

At the same time, people without resources still needed food.

That meant finding a way to do both.

The team worked closely with the police, understanding their concerns and finding practical ways to move safely and provide assistance to people who were suffering.

As requests began coming in, the initiative evolved.

It became a request-and-relief response.

Wherever a genuine request came from, the need was understood and the appropriate relief was arranged.

Food was one need.

But the larger principle was simple:

Tell us what is needed, and we will try to find a way to help.

The response became less about following a predetermined programme and more about responding to what people actually needed.

One of the things I have learned through community work is that it is very easy to arrive with an answer before you have properly understood the question.

Project Aasha made me think more carefully about that.

The work looked beyond individual relief activities and tried to understand communities more systematically through research, engagement and practical support.

We spent time trying to understand what people actually needed before deciding what should happen next.

That sounds obvious, but in a crisis it is surprisingly easy to skip that step.

The experience reinforced something I now try to carry into every initiative: the people experiencing a problem usually understand parts of that problem better than anyone arriving from outside.

When you listen first, the response becomes more grounded.

You are not simply delivering what you have.

You are trying to solve the problem that is actually there.

My work with the Nepalese Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum Kathmandu brought me into a different kind of community — young entrepreneurs, students and people who were trying to build something of their own.

As President of the Kathmandu Chapter, I saw how much energy already existed among young people.

The challenge was often not ambition.

It was access to networks, exposure, encouragement and opportunities to test an idea.

We worked on engaging colleges and students, encouraging participation in entrepreneurship and startup awards, and making recognition more meaningful by thinking about how award money could act as seed funding.

I became increasingly convinced that leadership is not simply about being given a title.

It is about being given enough trust and opportunity to do something with it.

When young people are given the space to participate, build and take responsibility, the impact extends well beyond one programme or one organisation.

When my name was called at Sheetal Niwas in 2021, I walked forward to receive the Jana Sewa Shree award from the Rt. Hon. President of Nepal, Smt. Bidhya Devi Bhandari.

I remember smiling for the photographs, accepting the award, and feeling proud.

But somewhere in that moment, my mind went somewhere else.

I thought about the people who had been there long before that stage — the volunteers who stood beside me after the 2015 earthquake, the people who donated whatever they could, the drivers who carried supplies, the friends who answered calls at all hours, and later, the many who came together again during COVID-19.

Looking at the award in my hands, I knew one thing very clearly:

My name was on it, but the work belonged to everyone.

That moment changed the way I looked at recognition.

Because every achievement that appears to have one face behind it usually has hundreds of hands, hearts and stories behind it.

I accepted the award with gratitude — not just for the honour, but for everyone who had been part of the journey.

To me, the Jana Sewa Shree is still less a reminder of what I did, and more a reminder of what we can do when we come together.