Teach For Nepal: Youth Volunteerism For Quality Education

It was the year 2005 when a person got inspired by a campaign in Sri-Lanka that was based on Gandhi’s philosophy, and made a mind to launch a similar kind of campaign in Nepal.

After returning to Nepal, he visited many rural villages in the course of different works.

During an interaction with the villagers in a remote area in Lalitpur, he was struck hard by the pathetic condition of their children. Despite having the enthusiasm to study, they couldn’t continue their study because of lack of schools above class five.

Added to this, he saw the disparities in quality of education in the government and private schools. While the students from private and boarding schools were passing SLC examinations without much difficulty, those students from the public schools were facing real challenges to pass the exam.

Thus, with a realization of a need for change in the education system in the public schools in rural villages, he, along with a team started the organization in the year 2013 that is now actively involved in teaching in various government schools in remote villages of Nepal.

The organization is Teach For Nepal and it was envisioned by a person none other than Mr. Shisir Khanal.

Teach For Nepal is a movement of young leaders working to ensure quality education to children in the rural public schools.

Since then, they have been working for making a significant change in the society as well as in an individual.

He had shared his story and experiences so far amidst a special interaction and experience sharing programme organized in the capital on Tuesday.

Along with Khanal, Swastika Shrestha, Co-founder and Head of Training at the organization and Mr. Bijay Mani Paudel, a TFN alumni had been in the programme to share their experience of the journey into the organization so far.

Speaking in the programme, Shrestha presented a brief info on volunteerism and shared about what it needs to be a TFN fellow. “Seriousness and commitment are two primary qualities a person needs to be a volunteer and those qualities in the youths are what is helping TFN achieve its success,” she shared.

Similarly, Bijay Mani Paudel shared his experiences as a TFN fellow, who taught as a volunteer teacher in Simle village in Lalitpur. “For the majority of the residents there belonging to the Tamang community, they barely understood good Nepali. So, I faced a lot of difficulties in communicating and teaching the kids there, in the beginning,” he said. “Moreover, the struggle the students had to face to come to the school was pathetic. They had to walk for up to 3 hours to reach the school while neither the school nor the education they got were good,” he added.

Furthermore, Paudel also shared many other difficulties he had to face while teaching there, especially teaching girls, as the girls there were very shy, had never held their head up and made an eye contact with teachers. “But, as I started to teach them with stories of some inspiring personalities like Jhamak Kumari Ghimire, it gradually became easier for me, as they seemed to be motivated to study,” he further shared. “Reminiscing those days as a TFN fellow, I feel overwhelmed!”

Started with a motive of imparting quality education in the public schools of Nepal, TFN has been providing an opportunity for Nepali youths to volunteer as teachers for 2 years in the three districts: Sindhupalchowk, Dhanusha and Lalitpur.

Photo Courtesy: Teach For Nepal/Facebook

By Ganga Gautam

Intern Reporter, Glocal Khabar