Mental Health Care Providers, Ankur Counselors Stories of Sucess

Part III: Ankur Counselors, Covid-19 Heros

Did you know? Ankur Counseling Center was the first mental health center for children in Nepal! Many of the nation’s earliest child-focused counselors and therapists received at least some training here.

Welcome to Part 3 of NYF’s Mental Health Month series, featuring the amazing frontline mental health care providers running Ankur Counseling Center from lockdown. (Click here to read Part 1, featuring Chhori Laxmi Maharjan, and Part 2, featuring Sumitra Dhakal, if you missed them!)

Next up: Mental Health Care Provider, Shristi Shrestha! Shristi first learned about Ankur Counseling Center while she was still a student of psychology. “I frequently visited NYF/Ankur… to take part in various trainings it offered and got a glimpse of how this organization worked. I was impressed by the quality of the training, the setting, the friendly staffs and used to wonder, What will it take to be a part of this place? When I was offered to join, it was like a dream come true.”

Like everyone else, Shristi is muddling through the lockdown. “I never thought that being homebound would be so difficult, as I used to miss being able to stay home previously! First couple of weeks were fine, but now I’m beginning to feel upset. Having to hear the rising number of positive cases and unfortunate deaths from around the world doesn’t help.”

But she’s making the most of it. Shristi feels better when meeting with team members to plan Ankur’s responses to the crisis, and she’s been posting psychological tips and messages on Ankur’s social media page. She’s very grateful for the internet. “When I’m not working, I like to watch movies and do other things to keep me interested, follow fitness exercises available on the internet and stay in touch with people who matter to me online.”

Through it all, she’s proud of the work she’s doing. “I have always wanted to be around children and do something to help them. The notion that I would be helping out those children who had to live through unimaginable hardships sounded rewarding in itself,” she says of her career goals. Now that she’s at Ankur, she’s loving the work just like she thought she would. “The pride in knowing that I’m making a difference in the world, not just for children but for so many families as well; getting the opportunity to grow every day – there’s always something new to learn on my job; not to mention the support and encouragement I get from my team.”

To help Shristi keep this important work going through the COVID-19 crisis, NYF needs your help! If you’d like to support the work of Mental Health Care Providers at the Ankur Counseling Center, please click here to donate.

Read Part 1 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 2 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 4 of our Mental Health Month series

New Life Center Nurses in Nepal, NYF’s Covid-19 Heroes

New Life Center nurses in Nepal are true Covid-19 heroes. Today, we at NYF honor the nurses pushing this work forward at our New Life Center outside Kathmandu, Nepal – and doing so in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the United States, May 19^th is Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day – a day to encourage HIV testing, raise community awareness, combat stigma, and advocate for populations living with HIV/AIDS.

HIV is one of the most stigmatized illnesses in Nepal. People living with HIV/AIDS often face social isolation, medical neglect, and physical and emotional abandonment. Often entire families face social rejection if a single member’s diagnosis is known.

NYF established the New Life Center to provide specialized, supportive care to children living with HIV/AIDS, making their lives not just longer, but more joyful. The NLC also benefits the caregivers of these children, educating them on hygienic practices, nutrition, and the effective management of HIV/AIDS, and providing group and individual therapy in partnership with Ankur Counseling Center.

Radhika Sapkota has been a driving force behind this mission since 2006. Radhika began her career working with injecting drug users and others living with HIV/AIDS in central Nepal – but she felt called to work with children. She had seen so many of them deprived of basic rights, ignored by health professionals, and neglected by their communities. She knew these children deserved far better.

When she learned about the NLC, she eagerly joined the NYF team. Her passion for the work and her love for the children she serves have helped develop the NLC into the incredible resource it is today.

Now that Nepal is in lockdown, Radhika is one of a team of eight nurses keeping the NLC running. Most of the patients and their families had to be sent home when the lockdown began, but a handful of children living with HIV/AIDS remain in NYF’s care. These kids – either orphaned or abandoned by their families – have no other home but the New Life Center.

On her off days, Radhika keeps a positive mindset by listening to soothing spiritual programs and keeping up with her yoga practice.

But work is a different story. The NLC is a 24-hour job for the eight nurses on staff, with plenty to do. During a regular shift, Radhika administers medication, monitors health and nutrition, consults with the NYF dietician, creates and conducts educational classes, teaches yoga, and makes sure the kids are entertained, well-fed, and happy – all while taking special care to ensure the kids’ vulnerable immune systems aren’t exposed to COVID-19.

One of the nurses working alongside Radhika is Yamuna Shrestha, an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife who had wished to help kids living with HIV/AIDS since she learned about them in school. Research shows that affected children lived longer when provided with adequate nutrition, love, and care – in short, when they were treated like children rather than patients. Yamuna liked the idea of offering this kind of medicine.

She’s been with the New Life Center since 2013, and she’s learned up close how devastating the stigma against HIV/AIDS can be to growing young minds. She’s also seen the incredible difference personal, loving, holistic care can make when combined with traditional medical responses to the virus. Now, Yamuna wants more than ever to bring smiles to the faces of every child who comes to the NLC.

When the lockdown began, Yamuna struggled to spend time at home alone, but she is embracing the new normal. After all, she has important work to do. She enjoys thinking of new creative tasks to do with the kids in between meals, medicine, and virtual meetings with experts.

Both Radhika and Yamuna talked about hope and happiness when asked about their favorite part of the job.

When most kids arrive at the NLC, they’re in extremely critical condition, and their mothers have lost hope for their children’s survival, Yamuna says. By the time the children recover – after months of nutritious food, play, therapy, medicine, and loving care – Yamuna can barely recognize them. The incredible happiness of the mothers is the best thing she’s experienced at the NLC.

Some of that happiness, Radhika says, comes from having their own experiences heard, respected, and honored. For many of these women, the journey with HIV began with a husband’s visit to a brothel. The diagnosis is devastating because it comes hand-in-hand with betrayal, and involves not only their own health, but the health of their children.

While caring for their children, Radhika sits with these women, allowing them to express their anger, fear, sadness, hopelessness, and uncertainty about the future. Gradually, these brave mothers can share their stories with each other, allowing healing on an emotional level to complement the physical work the medicine has done. When mothers feel empowered to care for their children again – that’s when Radhika feels the most fulfilled.

This is intensive, focused work, and like the rest of our programming, NYF relies on generous donations to keep it going. To help Radhika and Yamuna continue their important mission supporting children with HIV/AIDS – especially during the COVID-19 crisis! – please donate to NYF today!

Psychological Counselling in Nepal, Ankur Covid-19 Heroes

Psychological Counselling in Nepal is in high demand. Did you know? Ankur is the Sanskrit word for flower bud, sapling, or sprout.

Welcome to Part 2 of NYF’s Mental Health Month series, featuring the amazing frontline mental health care workers running Ankur Counseling Center, a center offering psychological counselling in Nepal during lockdowns. (Click here to read Part 1, featuring Chhori Laxmi Maharjan, if you missed it!)

This is Sumitra Dhakal. Once she’d earned her Master’s in Clinical Psychology, she joined the Ankur Counseling Center team in 2010 after hearing from a friend about the rewarding opportunities at NYF – particularly the blend of fulfilling work with children and the focus on Psychologial counselling in Nepal fostering quality education for staff members. “I felt like it could be a good platform to develop my technical skills,” Sumitra says. “Additionally, I have always enjoyed working with children. So it seemed like working with these children and being a part of their healing process would bring me a sense of satisfaction.”

A thoughtful career move became a mission, and 10 years later, Sumitra is still with NYF. While Chhori was studying in the United States, Sumitra managed operations at Ankur. Her favorite part of the job is the working environment: “Teamwork, supportive environment, satisfaction in knowing that I am able to help distraught children and adolescents through the counseling. Being able to actively work towards the quality enhancement of Ankur’s services – this is what motivates me and makes me happy,” she says.

Like many people throughout the world, Sumitra isn’t thrilled to be cooped up at home. “I am grateful that I am living safely in my home but sometimes I am irritated and frustrated due to the various difficulties I come across during this situation,” she admits. “So I’ve been trying to cope by doing self-care exercises.” The Ankur team has been sharing those self-care exercises online in easy-to-forward Nepali-language handouts.

On a more upbeat note, Sumitra says, “I have been providing tele-counseling to the children at Olgapuri and other few clients as well as tele-psychosocial support to members of the community. I feel it is good for myself to be helpful to others through my work at this time of crisis as I get to support them by listening to them and helping them to cope with the current situation.”

To help Sumitra keep this important work going through the COVID-19 crisis, NYF needs your help! If you’d like to support the work of Ankur Counseling Center, please click here to donate.

Read Part 1 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 3 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 4 of our Mental Health Month series

Center for Mental Health Counseling Nepal, Covid Heroes

NYF’s COVID-19 Heroes, Ankur Counselors

Part 1 of a four-part blog post series in honor of Mental Health Month

Center for Mental Health Counseling Nepal – NYF is Proud of our Covid Heroes

In the United States, Mental Health Month has been observed in May since 1949. Each year, Mental Health America launches a new campaign aimed at spreading awareness, breaking stigmas, and encouraging screenings and other practical ways to improve lives across the country – and beyond.

Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting lives across the globe, many of us need more mental health help than usual! Anxiety, depression, isolation, and trauma are only some of the very real mental and emotional effects of this ongoing international disaster. Here at Nepal Youth Foundation, we’re so grateful for the hard work of the mental health professionals serving communities all over the world during this incredibly tough time.

If you’ve been following our updates, you know that Nepal has been under a strict lockdown since mid-March. The offices at our Ankur Counseling Center, a Center for Mental Health Counseling Nepal are closed. But NYF’s counseling team is working harder than ever!

We’ve prepared a four-part blog series in honor of Mental Health Month. Let us introduce you the amazing women running Ankur Counseling Center from lockdown. Please join us in celebrating the spectacular work they do every day in Nepal!

Meet Chhori Laxmi Maharjan, the head of Ankur Counseling Center. She began her counseling career serving adults and children living with HIV/AIDS, but she felt a special connection with the children most of all. “I believe all children deserve to get education, basic needs, love and respect,” she says.

When an opportunity arose in 2006 for Chhori to join NYF, she felt she’d found the perfect match for her own life goals and personal values. She’s been a valuable member of the team ever since.

She’s also among the first Doctors of Psychology in Nepal, having only recently returned home from her PhD program here in the United States (she specialized in sand play therapy for children with trauma). “Lockdown brought me an opportunity to spend quality time with my family,” she says, optimistically focusing on the bright side. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to be home and reunite with my parents and extended family. I had missed so much of our everyday lifestyle. … I had been away from them for five years for my doctorate degree.”

Chhori is putting her years of hard work, education, and practical experience to good use during the pandemic. Working from home in lockdown conditions much stricter than those in the States, Chhori says, “I’ve been providing tele-counseling services for children and families to minimize distress amid COVID-19. In addition, I have been providing training and supervision for peer counselors and mental health professionals working for violence against children and women. These peer counselors and mental health professionals are actively providing counseling services in the community.” She’s also offering counseling services over the telephone to front line health care workers, the children in NYF’s care, and NYF staff members.

“The negative impact [of lockdown] is not seeing my clients and colleagues face-to-face,” Chhori admits, “although tele-counseling is somewhat helpful.”

The best part of working at Ankur? For Chhori, it’s always the children. “I see them grow and thrive into the persons they were meant to be. This is the best part of my job and it always brings me joy and inspires me to work harder, stay connected and strengthens my intentions to serve Nepalese children.”

To help Chhori and her team keep this important work going through the COVID-19 crisis, NYF needs your help! If you’d like to support the work of Ankur Counseling Center. Please click here to donate.

Read Part 2 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 3 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 4 of our Mental Health Month series

COVID-19 Update

As this pandemic continues to develop, NYF is committed to keeping the vulnerable communities in our care safe and healthy. We are so deeply touched by the ongoing concern and support from the NYF Family — thank you.

Nepal Programs

The situation in Nepal is quickly evolving as positive cases, though still relatively low, are increasing — and the strict, country-wide lockdown that has been in effect for a month is anticipated to last another month.

Both China and India have closed their borders to Nepal, leaving the small land-locked country with skyrocketing prices for food, medicine, and other essentials. As of this writing, there are 42 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nepal. The government has also confirmed that the virus has started to spread at a community level. This is alarming, seeing that up until a few days ago, cases were only limited to those who had returned from foreign countries. Tension is very high as there are serious doubts the healthcare system could withstand an outbreak.

NYF staff members are working from home under strict lockdown conditions — only able to communicate with one another over the telephone and the internet.

Olgapuri Children’s Village is closed to outsiders to ensure that all 77 of the children who live there are safe. As schools are closed, the children are finding creative ways to learn and stay active with help from their live-in house parents. They attend regular classes so as to not fall behind academically, and play basketball, soccer, and table tennis on the grounds. They have art and craft activities, and are learning skills in the kitchen as well as in the gardens.

Children at Olgapuri Children’s Village learning new skills, staying active, and creating art during the country-wide lockdown in Nepal.

On April 21, we safely brought 11 more college students receiving NYF scholarships to stay at our NRH emergency shelter. These students had been staying in different hostels, dormitories, and small apartments since the beginning of the lockdown — but had started to get nervous about their unsafe living conditions. Hearing these concerns, NYF coordinated with local police and the chief administrator of local authority for vehicle movement permission, and collected them from different locations in the valley. This means we now have a total of 21 kids staying in our facilities in Kathmandu — 16 college students at the NRH facility, and five children at the New Life Center.

Though Ankur Counseling Center can no longer provide in-person sessions, our four trained counselors are working tirelessly to continue providing essential services over the internet and the telephone. Their workloads have increased during the lockdown, as they try to reach families suffering from increased domestic violence (a side-effect of lockdown conditions). NYF is working with the government for longer-term solutions for these families, but in the meantime, Ankur counselors are providing what therapeutic support they can.

US Operations

Due to California’s state-wide “shelter in place” restrictions, our US headquarters in Sausalito will remain closed for the foreseeable future. Our small staff is working from home to ensure that our crucial funding for life-changing work in Nepal can continue.

Credit card donations via our website are still being processed without delay, as are direct bank transfers (EFTs). If you mail a check to our office, please know that we plan to check the mail twice per week, so there will be a delay in our thank you letter being mailed to you.

If you need to reach us, staff are monitoring individual emails and Info@NepalYouthFoundation.org daily. You can also call us at 415-331-8585 and leave a message, as staff will be periodically be calling in to check voicemail.

In these challenging times, we are most grateful to the loyal and generous members of the NYF community. We thank you for your care, concern, and understanding as we navigate this extraordinary crisis together.

Som Paneru, President
Eric Talbert, U.S. Executive Director
NYF Board of Directors

COVID-19 Affects Nepal, A Message to the NYF Community

During this time of uncertainty, we want to thank you all for your continuing concern for the NYF family and share this update.

Nepal Programs

As of March 17, our programs in Nepal have been restricted to protect the vulnerable young people in our care, and ensure the health and safety of the NYF staff.

Our staff is working remotely where possible, and practicing social distancing, scrupulous hygiene, and other best practices in all interactions.

The children at Olgapuri will remain safe at home, and the Vocational School training has been suspended. This allows the facility to be used for emergency shelter or an isolation ward, if that becomes necessary.

The main Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH) in Kathmandu is closing temporarily, and the New Life Center is not accepting new patients – although the five children without a safe place to go will remain there with caregivers.

Scholarship students will still receive their living expense stipends for the current period, although K-12 schools have closed, with colleges and universities to follow later in the week. Students who live in college dormitories or hostels and can’t return to their village or home will be accommodated at the NRH facility in Kathmandu.

US Operations

Our US headquarters in Sausalito is located in one of the six San Francisco Bay counties under first-in-the-country “shelter in place” restrictions. As of Tuesday, March 17, all non-essential businesses are closed and travel is limited through at least April 7. Our small staff is working from home to ensure that our crucial funding for life-changing work in Nepal can continue.

Credit card donations via our website are still being processed without delay, as are direct bank transfers (EFTs). If you mail a check to our office (3030 Bridgeway, #325, Sausalito, CA 94965), please know that we plan to check the mail once or twice per week, so there will be a delay in our thank you letter being mailed to you.

If you need to reach us, staff are monitoring individual emails and Info@NepalYouthFoundation.org daily. You can also call us at 415-331-8585 and leave a message, as staff will be periodically be calling in to check voicemail.

As challenging as this situation is, across the world our community of supporters are responding with compassion for some of the most impoverished people in the world.

We are so grateful for your continued concern for the vulnerable children and families who depend on NYF. We are committed to being there for those who need us, and your support remains crucial to making that possible.

Thank you all for being part of the NYF Family. We appreciate your patience, understanding, and generosity of spirit as we navigate this extraordinary crisis together.

Som Paneru, President
Kelly Anderson, CEO
NYF Board of Directors

From Our Hearts to Yours

Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at NYF!

On this special day, we’re so grateful to have such generous friends like you. We hope you enjoy these wonderful pictures of the children at Olgapuri.

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To read more about our 30th Anniversary celebrations and the impact of your support, check out our Winter Newsletter here.

Harvest Festival in Nepal, Celebrating Freedom: 7 Years & Counting!

Harvest Festival, Maghe Sankranti is a special holiday that celebrates the harvest. For the Tharu people in western Nepal, this holiday signifies the beginning of the new year – when friends and family gather to celebrate for an entire week.

But up until 2013, for many desperately poor families in this region, the annual Maghe Sankranti festival was also time for a devastating economic exchange. During this holiday, exploitative “brokers” would travel to western Nepal to haggle with the parents of impoverished low-caste families to buy their young daughters as servants.

With generous support from friends like you, in 2000 NYF launched our work to rescue these girls and bring them home – almost 13,000 have now been reunited with their families.

Thanks to the amazing advocacy of these young women, this horrendous Kamlari indentured servitude has ended. Already technically illegal, the practice was officially abolished in 2013. The former Kamlari girls have reclaimed the harvest festival, Maghe Sankranti, as a special homecoming celebration of their freedom and resilience.

This year, in celebration of this special holiday, two former Kamlari girls Bishnu and Dilkumari were honored by their local government for their contributions in empowering other former Kamlari girls. 

We share these powerful and inspiring photos of Magehe Sankranti 2020 to celebrate the amazing transformation in these communities – and to thank you for all of your generous support over the years in restoring the freedom and changing the lives of these former indentured girls.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Children!

In this special video, the children at Olgapuri wish you a happy Thanksgiving! We – and they – are so very grateful for your support. Thank you, and Dhanyabad!