Bhushan Dahal is Executive Director of Kids of Kathmandu and a teacher at Shankhar Dev College grad and post-grad student. He had finished his MBA and MBS. He shared his life story to Glocal Khabar about being a teacher and then working to build the schools for the kids.
Journey as an Educator
Teaching has been in his blood as his dad is an inspiration to him. His father Mr. Angur Dahal is soon to be a retired teacher and had taught for 27 years. Bhushan shared, “Having a teacher in a family never let me take teaching as a light job. I used to teach students from class 9 and 10 when I was young. And then I enjoyed home tutoring till I joined Shankar Dev.”
Shankar Dev Campus is a constituent campus of Tribhuvan University for management education. And as being a management enthusiast, he started teaching marketing to BIM students and both marketing and business strategy in MBS. It has been 3 years of teaching experience.
He added, “Teaching is my hidden interest as gives me an opportunity to experience and learn many things from faces from all over Nepal. I do feel like I am growing more and learning more as I teach new generations.”
An inspiration for building schools
Bhushan shared, “I am inspired by many stories I hear from children all around Nepal.” When he was travelling to places for providing food supplements to the earthquake victims, he had interactions with the kids in the villages. One of the kids asked him whether he knows any organizations that work for building wrecked schools. He was really shocked to know that the boy was not worrying about the food but school.
He added, “I wanted to know what was the reason for such attachment to school. And he stated that in his class there was a recitation of a story which remained incomplete for the day. His teacher promised him to complete the story on Sunday. But the earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday.” This story inspired him to work on the infrastructure of the school in different rural areas and where the school buildings are completely destroyed by the earthquake.
Building Complete and Wholesome Schools
Kids of Kathmandu (KoK) is a non-profit organization which works with the education for children mostly focusing on infrastructures. Bhushan has been working in KoK for almost 8 years.
He started his journey in KoK as Project Director and now as Executive Director. During his involvement, he has worked on the orphanage and developing and building the infrastructures of schools for children.
He said, “I have a responsibility of handling the everyday operations, go through many sensitive negotiations, meet the heads of countries and discuss many complicated rules and regulations regarding kids and their educational facilities. This work is what makes me believe that I have been working for a bigger change in Nepal.”
Smart Paani installs bio-sand filters to purify water for all schools. The system provides surplus water for the students to take home to their families. MPOWERD provides inflatable solar lights for home use to help extend the hours available to study for the kids. OLE Nepal is supplying more than 8,000 books in an e-library along with a plethora of new syllabi to the teachers and classrooms. Unicef’s initiative, WaSH, (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) training are basic first aid training to the teachers and students. SHoP Architects has designed the architectural plans considerating the need for natural light, ventilation, community space, construction, and material transportation costs.
Bhushan shared, “I am happy that I m not only building a “school”. I am a part of the project that builds a complete and wholesome school and school environment.”
Message to the youth
He concluded, “Nepali youth is full of skills and the enthusiasm and passion the youth carry if injected back into the society will be very helpful for the development of our country Nepal. Prioritization helps a lot. I enjoy being around people where I can somehow empower them. Happiness is always what matters. So, choose those job which you will enjoy.”
By: Sampada Dahal
