World Youth Skills Day 2025

It’s World Youth Skills Day 2025! Each July 15th, NYF commemorates World Youth Skills Day to highlight the need for practical skills training among young adults in Nepal for gainful employment and entrepreneurship.

The need is urgent and significant—as across Nepal, a quiet crisis has been unfolding for years.

In 2014, the number of young Nepalis seeking work outside of the country surpassed 500,000. That’s over 1.6% of Nepal’s entire population. That annual number has continued to rise steadily in the years since, crossing 750,000 this past year (2.5%).

Families Separated, Futures Risked

This rising outward migration is due to limited job access within Nepal’s borders, leaving millions of young Nepali people feeling like they had no choice but to search for work abroad. Today, an estimated 3.5 million Nepalis (14% of Nepal’s population) are working abroad in unsafe and exploitative conditions in countries like Malaysia, India, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. That means over half of Nepali households have at least one family member working overseas.

Unfortunately, the process of securing these jobs can be quite expensive. Even more, when young people arrive to begin working, the positions are often very different than expected. Most of these workers end up taking on grueling labor jobs. Employers frequently take advantage of these workers’ low bargaining power. Sadly, stories of wage theft, trafficking, inhumane working conditions, and physical abuse are common.

The Solution: NYF’s Vocational Education & Career Counseling

Ironically, lucrative job opportunities do exist in Nepal. There’s just a shortage of accessible skills training opportunities, especially in remote areas. This is where NYF’s Vocational Education and Career Counseling program comes in—not as a response, but as a solution.

Our VECC program links motivated young adults with the holistic resources and training they need to start lucrative careers in Nepal’s growing economy. Our Vocational School provides high-quality, hands-on training in fields like electrical work, plumbing, welding, tailoring, carpentry, and greenhouse farming.

This past year alone, over 1,000 young adults received services from NYF’s VECC program!

35th Anniversary Year Celebration: Alumni Spotlight

As of this July, NYF is officially in its 35^th Anniversary Year. In celebration of this milestone, we’ll be spending these next 12 months highlighting our alumni and the incredible work they’ve done since receiving our support. (To view all the stories we’ve published so far, please visit: https://nyf.news/35years.)

This World Youth Skills Day, we’re spotlighting Shital Chaudary, who is an alumna of the Olgapuri Vocational School Electrical Program. She received NYF support between April and June 2022, when she was the only woman in a group of 23 trainees in a village-based Electrician Training Course. She thrived in the course and earned her electrician’s certification.

Read Shital Chaudhary’s full story below

World Youth Skills Day Spotlight: Shital Chaudhary

Shital Chaudhary grew up in a very traditional home in southwestern Nepal. Unfortunately, this meant that, as a girl, her aspirations and well-being were given very low priority. Money was tight, and any extra resources were saved for her brothers.

Even without support at home, Shital was a bright and motivated student. She scored well on the challenging Secondary Education Exam (SEE, or “Iron Gate”) at the end of the 10th grade. Only about 50% of students pass this rigorous exam, and these rates are even lower in rural areas.

But a few short months into the 11th grade, Shital’s dreams were crushed when her family forced her to drop out of school and marry a local man. She became completely financially dependent on her husband, who refused to pay for even the basic necessities for Shital or their baby son.

Everything changed when Shital learned that NYF was bringing a village-based Electrical Training Course to her area in 2022. She quickly signed up, completely unfazed at being the only woman in a group of 23 trainees. The program provided her with technical skills, as well as the confidence and dignity she had long been denied.

Shital thrived in the course, which became the foundation for a remarkable personal and professional transformation. She enjoys a place of high respect within her family, and her son is enrolled in a good school. And her personal mission has expanded.

After earning her electrician’s certification, Shital was immediately hired at a construction company in Kathmandu. She worked there for 10 months. When NYF expanded the Olgapuri Vocational School Electrical program, we asked if she’d been willing to join our staff as an instructor.

Today, Shital is employed at NYF as an electrical trainer. She helps other young adults access the same life-changing opportunities she once received. Most importantly, Shital is making an incredible impact by empowering youth to stay in Nepal and build a future at home.

She shares a powerful message to the NYF Community that is fitting for World Youth Skills Day 2025: “Not everyone can pursue higher education, but vocational training can change lives in just a few months. If the next generation combines education with practical skills, there are endless opportunities right here in Nepal and youths do not have to migrate abroad and leave their families and communities to earn a living. Be true, disciplined, and work selflessly. Success will follow you. We don’t need to go abroad to find happiness—we can build our dreams right here at home.”

Improvements have been made to our Nutrition Outreach Camps!

For children in Nepal’s most remote regions, life-saving nutritional support can be incredibly hard to access. That’s why Nepal Youth Foundation (NYF) launched Nutrition Outreach Camps—mobile programs designed to bring the most critical components of our Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH) model directly to families in rural communities. These camps combine education, screening, treatment referrals, and community empowerment into a few intensive days of care.

Over the years, we’ve learned valuable lessons from each camp—about what worked well and what needed improvement. Our original model was a strong foundation, but it had limitations: short durations, limited follow-up, and difficulty reaching the most remote communities.

Today, our updated model is more mobile, more hands-on, and more sustainable—bringing lasting change to families who need it most. In 2023–24 alone, NYF’s Nutrition Outreach efforts reached over 7,500 children across Nepal through full-scale camps and school-based screenings. Click here to view a PDF graphic explaining this new model.

Reaching Even the Most Remote Communities

Original Model: In the past, NYF’s Nutrition Outreach Camps were held in remote but accessible regions. However, we were often limited by unreliable vehicles, long travel times, and a lack of transportation options—especially for sick children and their families.

New Model: Thanks to our new all-terrain vehicle and the expanding array of NRHs across Nepal, we are now able to reach even more difficult-to-access communities than ever before.

Extended Camp Duration for Deeper Impact

Original Model: Our original model involved setting up a single large camp in a central location within one day’s walking distance of several villages. Families had to invest significant time and energy to reach us, and our team had only a short window to spend with each child.

New Model: Now, each camp lasts five to six days, and rather than asking families to come to us, we bring the services directly to them. Every day, our team moves to a new venue, visiting each individual village. This allows families—especially those with sick children—to reach us more easily and gives our team more time with each child.

Building Long-Term Community Resilience

Original Model: Previously, one major challenge was our limited ability to follow up with families after the camps. While we did provide open-air informational workshops and personalized nutritional counseling, only caregivers who brought their children to NRHs received hands-on training and follow-up house visits. Others had to rely on secondhand information from neighbors.

New Model: Now, we’ve built robust community follow-up into the program. Following each camp, a field staff member remains in the area for several more days to ensure sustainable community change. This includes visiting each village to conduct longer follow-up nutritional trainings for families, teachers, and health care workers; making house calls to those experiencing malnutrition to provide more hands-on training; identifying and screening children who did not attend the camp; arranging more transportation to nearby NRHs; and returning to provide more follow-up training several times over the next year.

Smarter Use of Specialist Support

Original Model: In the original model, we brought pediatricians from Kathmandu hospitals to each camp. While this provided access to expertise, it also limited our travel time and camp duration, added significant costs, and sometimes distracted families from participating in nutritional workshops. Very little medical equipment could be brought along, and children still often needed referrals to facilities for proper diagnosis and treatment.

New Model: Now, NYF’s trained nursing team is fully equipped to identify children in need of non-nutritional pediatric care. Rather than bringing pediatricians along, our team coordinates referrals and transports sick kids to appropriate medical resources—helping us maintain high-quality care while being more efficient. Children with routine ailments like eczema, ringworm, and mild skin infections receive over-the-counter medicines without needing to see a specialist.

Hands-On Learning at NYF’s Nutrition Outreach Camps

Using fresh, locally grown ingredients, NYF’s nutrition team prepares and packages lito in-house to distribute at Nutrition Outreach Camps. But beyond distribution, we also teach caregivers how to make it at home, emphasizing how small, affordable dietary changes can yield big results. For many children who are mildly or moderately malnourished, swapping just one serving of rice per day for a serving of lito can significantly improve their nutritional status—no hospital visit required.

This simple but powerful solution exemplifies our goal: to empower families with tools they can use long after the camp has ended.

Nutrition Education in Action

While families wait to visit with nurses and nutritionists, NYF’s team sets up an interactive nutrition education space, complete with displays of traditional Nepali grains and vegetables like lentils, peas, beans, chickpeas, corn, wheat, squash, broccoli, and cauliflower.

These presentations offer practical, easy-to-understand guidance on how to make meals more nutritious using ingredients families already know and grow. Afterward, caregivers and children are invited to take a closer look at the display and ask follow-up questions—turning waiting time into a valuable learning opportunity. It’s one more way NYF is helping to build lasting nutrition habits, right at the community level.

A Smarter Model, A Healthier Future

At NYF, we believe that no child should suffer from malnutrition simply because of where they live. By continually improving the design of our Nutrition Outreach Camps, we’re making it easier for families to access the resources they need—while investing in the long-term health of entire communities.

This is more than outreach. It’s empowerment, and it’s one more way NYF is ensuring that children across Nepal have the opportunity to grow up healthy, strong, and ready to thrive. To learn more about our Nutritional Outreach Camps, visit our program page.