Epic Thanks

Dear Friends,

HAPPY TWEETSGIVING! what are you grateful for? join us in spreading #EpicThanks across the web & across the world.http://www.EpicThanks.org/

Epic Thanks

www.EpicThanks.org

A global celebration of gratitude and giving that honors inspirational changemakers who created hope in our world.

This is a global effort to help our work here in Nepal and Elsewhere. Please support and donate!


And here is my story via http://epicthanks.org/changemakers

My journey to this day began in Arupokhari, a remote western Nepali village, which is more than a day's walk from the district headquarters. My village was at the heart of Nepal's ten years of civil war from 1996 to 2006. When I was five years old, every day I walked barefoot to and from school and then came home to study under the kerosene lamps as part of my daily routine. Even though we didn't have blacktopped roads, electricity, telephones or a proper school, all the children I knew dreamed of becoming doctors or pilots. We knew even then that no one wanted us to settle for anything less. But over time, as we busied ourselves building dreams amidst poverty, hunger and scarcity, we slowly began to realize how unrealistic and impossible those dreams were. After all these years, we do not have a single doctor or a pilot from my hometown.

Still, with all of this, I have never been able to stop dreaming big. From the time I was young, I longed for changes in Nepal. My audacity to think like this came in part because at the age of nine I had one very important dream come true. I was selected to study in a prestigious British-style school in Kathmandu, Nepal. That was when I saw buses and electricity for the first time; and first started to learn English. That is where I first learned that sometimes in one moment, your life can change forever.

I am a wildly optimistic person willing to sacrifice for my country so that future generations do not have to suffer the same way. I believe that changing a country has to start with educating the young generation and that is where I am investing my energy. With the Sarswati Foundation that I founded in the summer of 2009, I am now working on building the first peace school in Nepal so that the children whose lives were blighted by the war get an opportunity to overcome unfounded prejudice and discrimination and realize the possibilities of creating an informed and tolerant society for future generations. I want all of the children in my village to get the best possible education so that they can achieve their dreams of becoming not only doctors or pilots but anything else they desire to be.

After years of poverty, struggle and despair, I became the first person in generations of my family to graduate from college. My mom passed away when I was nine years old. Her life has been a light and inspiration to me and without her motivation and upbringing, my journey to this day would have been impossible.

Dear Friends, we need countless stories to move our world forward. We need schools that teach our students to action; we need education that not only teaches us to be good citizens but also go out and make a difference. We need idealists; we need dreamers, thinkers and leaders. My education has made me look beyond and contribute towards the greater good of the society. As President Obama once said, "every generation we have an obligation to work on behalf of the next generation."

Some may have called me naive for daring to dream at all, if they had seen the place where I started from. But if we stop dreaming and if we stop believing in ourselves, we are never going to create a world that is fair and just for everyone. If we are not willing to sacrifice, who will? How long can we wait? Please support my peace school project to educate and enable thousands of war affected Nepalese children to dream big and achieve their dreams.