Lito for Life: NYF’s 3rd COVID Response Program for Nepal

Lito for Life is the the third Covid response program recently launched by Nepal Youth Foundation. Lito is a nutritious ‘super flour’.

As the COVID-19 crisis progresses in Nepal, the economic impacts on individual families are intensifying. Over half of Nepal’s population relies on wages earned day-to-day or week-to-week for labor done outside of social distanced environments, either in Nepal or abroad. The countrywide lockdown, border closures, global recession, and uncertainty about the future are hitting these workers and their families especially hard.

For the months since the lockdown began, these individuals have not been able to work. Forced into tough decisions between rent and food, many parents are going hungry to feed their children. Applications at local municipal offices for food relief are coming from construction and industry workers, daily laborers, employees and owners of small private businesses, and many more, all of whom have been unable to earn wages since March—and the lists are growing by the week. The longer these families are forced to tighten their belts, the higher their risk of malnutrition.

NYF is proud to be part of the Lito for Life response to this crisis. In addition to our new Community Nutrition Kitchens and Emergency Halfway Home for Women, we have now launched a third COVID Response program: Lito for Life.

Meet Radhika, an NYF staff member who is accustomed to manufacturing Lito (or “super flour”) for our regular nutrition programming. The nutrient-rich staple is a critical menu item at our Nutrition Rehabilitation Homes and is distributed to families with children under age 5 at our remote Nutrition Outreach Camps.

Now, Radhika and her teammates are preparing and packaging Lito for a broader use: keeping urban families nourished through the pandemic’s hunger crisis.

Lito is made of roasted and ground corn, wheat, and soybeans, and contains all the nutrients necessary to sustain good health in adults and children alike. Simple to prepare with hot water (or milk, if available) and tasty enough to be accepted and enjoyed by very young children, each 1-kg packet (2.2 lbs) can provide two days of nutrition to a family of four or five. And, if desired, Lito is easily supplemented with other sparing ingredients a family might have on-hand: oil, onions, or spices.

Each packet costs approximately $2 to prepare, including materials, prep, packaging, staff time, and distribution. That means that a gift of $6 can keep an entire family safe from malnutrition for over one week!

Radhika and her teammates have already prepared over 2,000 kilos (4,409 lbs.) of Lito! NYF is working directly with local municipal offices to identify Kathmandu Valley families reaching out for assistance. Each week, we will provide these families with three packets of Lito, ensuring they can maintain basic levels of nutrition at home throughout the crisis.

I wish I knew when Nepal will be able to reopen safely—but I do know that this intervention will keep families strong and healthy, so when the pandemic is over, they can reenter the recovering economy from a place of strength and resilience. That knowledge is comforting in this time of so much turmoil.

In the meantime, Radhika’s #LoveWorks, one packet of Lito at a time. She and I have seen the incredible difference this mindfully produced “super flour” makes in the lives of parents working towards better health for their children, and we know what each packet can accomplish in each household. Radhika and her team are doing important work with each batch of Lito produced.

But she needs your help to keep the work going. Each thoughtful gift of $6 protects an entire family’s nutritional health for one week; $24 accomplishes the same thing for a month. Imagine how much a healthy community of one hundred families can accomplish together. Please help us put the NYF Family’s tradition of love to work today by making your thoughtful online donation here.

Dhanyabad,
Som Paneru, President

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 continue 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, please email NYF. Please feel free to give us a call and leave a message, as staff will be periodically be calling in to check voicemail.

Learn more about how Nepal Youth Foundation makes real change possible in Nepal on our Programs page. Read our latest newsletters or be the change and donate to NYF today.

Emergency Lifeline Halfway Home for Women, A Covid Response by NYF

Emergency Lifeline Halfway Home for women, is another Covid Response program developed by NYF.

When we at NYF realized back in March 2020 that COVID-19 would be coming soon to Nepal, our emergency response team in Lalitpur made the difficult decision to pause the normal operations of our Nutritional Rehabilitation Homes.

Nepal’s country-wide lockdown was successful in slowing the spread of COVID-19, but now the virus is spreading more widely. According to international virus trackers, there are now more than 10,000 confirmed cases in Nepal, with 10,000 more swabs awaiting test results. The Nepalese government is predicting an increase to 50,000 cases within the next month, and the actual number of cases is certainly much higher than is known.

This past week, NYF staff member Amrit (pictured below) transported our first seven quarantine guests to the NRH. Each woman, like Bilhana, has spent the past several months stranded abroad, unable to work due to lockdowns throughout the world. The Nepalese government has finally been able to rescue them and bring them home.

Below, Heena (name has been changed), age 24, breathes a sigh of relief, looking at the beautiful Kathmandu Valley landscape in a restful moment. Here at the Kathmandu Valley NRH, she will have a bed, the company of other women who speak her language, hot nutritious meals, access to healthcare, and comfortable space for quarantining as her country moves forward.

At NYF, we are honored to be equipped to offer this service. We are grateful for the many loving donations that built our NRHs—buildings we never imagined would be used for this purpose, but which have prepared us for this difficult moment in world history. Thank you.

Keeping this program afloat will take work, however. Our staff members need PPE to ensure the highest levels of safety for the women in our care. Food costs will continue to rise, as will the routine costs of running a facility like the NRH: electricity, water, gasoline, cooking fuel, and incidental repairs. We will need masks for our guests, soap, hand sanitizer, linens, and more, all of which will be provided in a Welcome Kit upon arrival. In a crisis impacting the entire world, NYF needs you as much as it ever has—perhaps more.

As we work together in the coming weeks and months, we can prove how much #LoveWorks. Each thoughtful gift supports the health, safety, and wellness of women and children experiencing catastrophic instability during this worldwide crisis. If you would like to help support women thorough our Emergency Lifeline Halfway Home or another NYF program, please make an online donation today.

Dhanyabad,
Som Paneru, President

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 continue 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, please email NYF. You can also call us and leave a message, as staff will be periodically be calling in to check voicemail.

Community Nutrition Kitchen in Lalitpur, An NYF Covid Response

Community Nutrition Kitchens in Lalitpur are providing hot, nutritious lunches free-of-charge to children in locked down communities. This effort has been a successful launch of one of our new COVID interventions for people in Nepal. For each dollar donated, one child can enjoy a complete, delicious, nutrient-rich lunch. With food costs rising as Nepal’s lockdown continues, these lovingly prepared meals provide kids with the most vitamins they’ll eat in a week.

At NYF, our 30^th anniversary year is developing much differently than we’d planned. COVID-19 continues to disrupt regular life across the world. But our dynamic family of supporters and our dedicated staff are determined to do all we can for the children of Nepal, especially during this time of international crisis.

Sejun (name has been changed), age 11, lives in Lalitpur, on the south side of Kathmandu Valley. He was one of 50 children who arrived at the NYF Community Nutrition Kitchen this week. As a growing boy, his appetite won’t slow down just because there’s a lockdown – and making food stretch from week to week is exhausting and nerve-wracking for his mother. When they heard that NYF would be providing free hot lunches for children like Sejun, there was no question about it. The day of our Community Nutrition Kitchen in Lalitpur, they put on their masks and walked down to the public school, where NYF staff members were waiting with steaming pots full of rice, daal (lentil soup), curry, sautéed spinach, tomato achar, lito (super flour), carrots and cucumbers. This provides a complete nutritional meal.

NYF is developing our Community Nutrition Kitchens in Lalitpur program based on similar successful programming that followed the devastating earthquakes Nepal experienced in 2015, as well as knowledge gained from holding our Nutrition Outreach Camps before the pandemic. We’re fortunate to have a nutritionist on our team in Nepal, and devoted staff members who know how to create delicious, kid-friendly, nutrient-rich meals for large groups.

As this program moves forward, NYF expects much larger groups than were served at this school in Lalitpur. Communities in Nepal are full of hardworking, devoted families whose livelihoods have been impacted by the pandemic. They’re wondering how they’ll manage to feed their growing children due to the lockdown. NYF is determined to help – but we’ll need a lot of teamwork to succeed!

The Community Nutrition Kitchen in Lalitpur this week was sponsored by my 11-year-old daughter, Karuna. In 2017, when she was 8, Karuna wrote and illustrated her first book, The Animal Adventure, to sell in support of children impacted by deadly monsoon floods. Now she’s been selling her book again, and for 5,000 of her hard-earned rupees (about $50), Karuna provided lunch to 50 kids like Sejun. Karuna’s generous heart is just one of the many reasons NYF knows that #LoveWorks.

Maybe you would like join Karuna to help us continue developing Community Nutrition Kitchens to provide healthy meals to more children like Sejun? Every thoughtful dollar donated provides a growing child with a hot, nutritious midday meal full of the vitamins he or she needs to stay healthy, strong, and happy. To make an online donation to NYF’s ongoing COVID Response, please click here.

Thank you,
Som Paneru, President

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 continue 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, please email NYF. You can also call NYF and leave a message, as staff will be periodically be calling in to check voicemail.

Staff Spotlight, Olgapuri House Parents Bhim & Shreemaya Shrestha

This is a staff spotlight on Bhim & Shreemaya Shrestha, house parents of the senior girls at Olgapuri Children’s Village. If you enjoyed reading this, please check out:

Staff Spotlight: Junior girls’ house parents Bishnu Rana & Pushpa Thapa at Olgapuri

Staff Spotlight: Junior boys’ house parents Dipak Raj Onta & Samana Amatya Onta at Olgapuri

Two months into Nepal’s COVID-19 lockdown, the streets of Kathmandu are empty. 

But at Olgapuri, the senior girls’ kitchen is bustling. Shreemaya-Aunty is demonstrating the proper way to make a beloved snack: samosas. With peas frying alongside fragrant ajwain seeds, onion, ginger, hing, hot peppers, cumin, and other rich spices, the entire room smells absolutely tantalizing. Twenty girls watch eagerly as crumbled potato is added to Shreemaya’s large pot.

Shreemaya Shrestha and her husband, Bhim Shrestha, are the house parents in Olgapuri’s senior girls’ house. For the twenty girls living here, all between the ages of 14 and 19, Bhim and Shreemaya are the primary adult influences, in charge of providing the parental care that all teenagers need—reminders about homework, parent-teacher conferences, life advice, support in social interactions, role modeling, balanced discipline, and, of course, love.

Bhim and Shreemaya came to Olgapuri with a long history of childcare experience. They’ve worked together in childcare homes for a long time, and have raised many children with their natural warmth, personal care, and love. 

The two befriended the Olgapuri children through their work in other childcare homes, and their creative approach to helping children work through problems matched NYF’s goals beautifully. Bhim-Uncle and Shreemaya-Aunty formally joined Olgapuri as house parents in 2016.

Back in the kitchen, Shreemaya-Aunty is showing twenty girls how to roll samosa dough to the proper thickness to achieve a crisp, deliciously fried shell. The aromatic potato-peas-and-spices mixture is cooling on the counter, and several girls are tempted to sneak a taste—but they know it’ll taste so much better once wrapped into neat packets, deep-fried, and dipped in chutney.

This is just one activity the house parents have devised to make the most of the lockdown. Nobody can leave the Olgapuri campus, and the central dining hall for the four houses has been closed, so age-appropriate cooking lessons have been occurring in the four house-kitchens each day as family meals are prepared. By the end of the pandemic, Olgapuri may have budding chefs testing new dishes on their siblings!

While Shreemaya is teaching the art of the samosa (as well as other day-to-day tasks the girls will value once they’ve left Olgapuri), Bhim-Uncle is hard at work as well, reaching out to the girls’ schools, ensuring homework is complete, and troubleshooting online classes. He’s also paying close attention to the ways each girl is coping with the current crisis. Bhim is a counselor with a Master’s in Psychology and a Bachelor’s in Management. His skills are crucial to ensure that each girl receives the individual care she needs. 

Bhim and Shreemaya also work together to help organize outdoor activities on the beautiful Olgapuri campus, find creative ways to hold club activities, and coordinate with NYF staff members to keep programs as active as possible through the crisis. 

Normally, house parents take occasional weekends off to visit their loved ones outside of Olgapuri, but during the lockdown, they’ve all been socially isolated on the campus grounds, just like the children. It’s been a “different” experience—an extra-demanding chapter in a demanding career. Bhim and Shreemaya are busy and tired. But their love for the children translates into determined satisfaction. Through it all, they know the most important lesson they are teaching the senior girls is one that will serve them long into the future: how to survive and thrive in difficulties.

Standing in the warm, fragrant kitchen, Shreemaya-Aunty isn’t just teaching twenty girls to make a delicious snack. As she offers advice on dough-folding and the proper amount of filling, she is also listening to the girls discussing their worries, their hopes, and their daily troubles. She’s listening to the jokes they tell and the ease of their laughter, and she’s watching uncertain fingers grow in confidence as the samosas come together, lined up together on a platter, ready for the deep-fryer bubbling nearby. 

As the first samosas are lifted carefully from the simmering oil, the scent of deep-fried dough tempting girls to burn their fingers and their tongues on the golden-brown delicacies, Shreemaya-Aunty knows the girls’ success is what matters most. And she and Bhim-Uncle are committed to the success of each and every one of them. 

It’s because of them that #LoveWorks.

All across the world, families are gathering together to cope with the pandemic. If you believe in the work Bhim and Shreemaya are doing at Olgapuri, please help them by sharing their story on social media with the hashtag #LoveWorks!

And if you’d like to try Shreemaya’s samosas in your own kitchen, you can! Click here for Shreemaya’s very own recipe—a special gift for the NYF Family!

Vegetable Samosa Recipe, Shreemaya Shares her Recipe from Nepal

This vegetable samosa recipe is a special gift from Shreemaya-Aunty. She wanted to share this recipe with her NYF english-speaking supporters. Yum, thank you! These deep-fried (or baked) morsels will transport you to Nepal with none of the risks of pandemic travel.

Shreemaya and her husband, Bhim, are the senior’s girls house parents at Olgapuri Children’s Village, a holistic home for Nepalese children just outside of Kathmandu. To read about their work during Nepal’s COVID-19 lockdown, click here.

In our recipe, we’ve offered substitution suggestions for some specialized ingredients, though you may find both ajwain and hing online. We’ve also reduced Shreemaya’s original recipe (when cooking for twenty hungry teenagers, her recipe calls for 24 cups of flour!). To watch a Nepali YouTuber demonstrate the proper techniques, click here.

The “NYF American Test Kitchen” (NYF staff members and their families!) tried out the recipe below with rave reviews. A few tips: a tester who tried gluten-free flour was unsuccessful, but the filling was still delicious! Another who used puff pastry sheets reported a delicious, buttery result, if a much less “traditional” samosa flavor. And everyone was missing something different in their lockdown spice cabinet—but even without a few key flavors, each of us achieved samosas we’d be happy to eat again!

If you make samosas with your family, please share your photos with NYF on social media, with the hashtag #LoveWorks and a link to Shreemaya’s recipe!

Shreemaya’s Samosas
yield: 14 samosas

Dough (or substitute store-bought puff pastry sheets):
2 cups white flour
4 Tbsp. sunflower oil (or olive oil)
¼ tsp. salt
approx. 6 Tbsp. water

Filling:
3-4 medium potatoes
2 Tbsp. sunflower oil or ghee (or olive oil)
½ cup + 2 Tbsp green peas
¼ cup onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. fresh ginger, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. cilantro, finely chopped
Serrano pepper or jalapeno, finely chopped, to taste
1 tsp. ajwain or dried thyme
¼ tsp. hing (asafoetida powder) or garlic powder
½ tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. cumin
Himalayan rock salt (or sea salt) & black pepper to taste

Oil for deep frying, approx. 2 cups

Vegetable Samosa Recipe Instructions:

To make the dough, combine the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the oil, and with clean fingers, begin rubbing the oil into the flour, working the ingredients together for several minutes until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. You should be able to take a handful of these crumbs and press them together into a mass that holds its shape. Gradually add the water by tablespoonfuls, combining with your hands until the mixture forms a stiff dough. Do not overwork the dough or knead it, as this will create a tough exterior for your samosas. When a stiff dough has been achieved, cover it with a moist cloth or a thin layer of oil and allow it to rest for 40 minutes. Alternatively, you may use store-bought puff pastry sheets or similar to wrap your samosas.

To prepare the filling, peel and boil the potatoes until they are cooked through. Drain and lightly smash them (do not mash them – simply crumble them into small chunks), then set aside. Heat the 2 Tbsp. oil on medium heat and, if you are using ajwain, add it to the oil to begin releasing the flavors (if you are substituting dried thyme, add it later, with the rest of the spices). Add the peas and onions and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions are soft and beginning to turn golden-brown. Add the fresh ginger, then the potatoes and the remaining ingredients, stirring until well-incorporated and cooked through. Remove from heat and allow to cool somewhat.

Break your samosa dough into about seven equal-sized balls, then roll them, one at a time, into elongated ovals around 6-7 inches in diameter. Cut these ovals in half, forming semi-circles, and use a bit of water to create a cone by pinching the straight edge in half (see video for demonstration). Add about 1-2 Tbsp. of the filling to this cone, careful not to overfill, then pinch the opening closed with a bit of water. Set aside for frying and continue until all samosas are filled, keeping the completed samosas covered with a moist cloth to prevent them from drying out.

Using a wok or other deep pan, heat 2 cups of deep-frying oil (good options include sunflower oil, peanut oil, and canola oil). Heat the oil on relatively low heat – when you drop a small piece of dough into the oil, it should take a few seconds to come to the surface. Carefully drop the samosas into the oil by sliding them down the sides of the wok. Fry only 4-5 samosas at a time, slowly, turning them with tongs as they brown. Watch them carefully until you have a feel for how long they take to cook. They may take 15 minutes or so to cook. When the samosas are firm and nicely browned, remove them to a plate lined with paper towels and begin frying the next batch.

Baked Samosa Recipe Version:

With this Vegetable Samosa Recipe, you may also bake the samosas – once the samosas are shaped, lightly brush them with oil and bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees F. for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy your vegetable samosas hot, ideally with your favorite chutney!

**Photo credits: Photos for this piece were provided by Shreemaya Shrestha, Eimi Olson-Kikuchi, and Katrina Reinert.**

Founder’s Day 2020: Olga’s Birthday Wish Comes True!

On Monday, June 1^st, NYF celebrated our first-ever virtual Founder’s Day in honor of Olga’s 95^th birthday and NYF’s 30^th anniversary!

Thank you to everyone who attended! We welcomed over twice as many guests as we expected, and in spite of a few technical glitches, the NYF Family enjoyed a heartfelt reunion of individuals all across the world.

Our attendees came from all corners of the United States, from Hawaii to New York, and from Nepal, Hong Kong, Thailand, and more. Dedicated European guests woke up in the wee hours of the morning to attend our live gathering. Some guests were brand new to NYF, and others have shared our journey from the very beginning. We are grateful to every one of you for helping make this event a resounding success. Dhanyabad!

If you missed the event or would like to enjoy Founder’s Day again, a full recording is available online: https://www.facebook.com/nepalyouthfoundation/videos/588209985430243/

Special thanks go to emcees Normandie Ramirez and Deborah Pardes; filmmakers Roy Cox and Robin Mortarotti; and photographer Alison Wright for helping shape the inspiring presentations; to law student Urmila Chaudhary for her courage in sharing her story; to author and philanthropist Isabel Allende for her beautiful toast; to the volunteers, board members, advisory board members, and staff working behind the scenes; and of course, to Olga Murray and Som Paneru for giving us so much to celebrate – even as they are all sheltering in place!

To learn more about the NYF team you met online, click here.

Olga’s Birthday Wish

To honor her 95^th birthday, Olga wished for 95 gifts in support of NYF – one for every year of her life. With thoughtful responses still arriving, the NYF community has responded with over 100 gifts, making Olga’s birthday wish a beautiful, loving reality. Thank you to everyone who has and is still contributing towards Olga’s wish. #LoveWorks because of you, NYF’s thoughtful family of supporters. If you would like to make a birthday gift in Olga’s honor, please do so here: https://nepalyouthfoundation.org/donate/

#LoveWorks

NYF has launched a new social media campaign, and we need everyone’s help to spread the word! 

From the very beginning, the secret ingredient across NYF’s programming has been LOVE – love for Nepal’s culture, its people, its landscape, its languages, and especially its children. This love unifies board members, advisory board members, staff, volunteers, and supporters across the world – and this love works.

As the early generations of NYF children become successful, passionate, determined adults, we in the NYF Family are so fortunate to see the incredible impact of love in action. Many of our graduates have started careers in government, education, health, child psychology, architecture, and advocacy for individuals with disabilities. Others are living their dreams to provide opportunities to their own children – opportunities their own parents dreamed of giving to them. Still more are daring to challenge deep-rooted problems in their own communities, bravely following in the footsteps of their beloved Olga-Mom.

Please tell your NYF stories on social media, using the hashtag #LoveWorks, to share this powerful message with your friends. Together, our love accomplishes so much in the lives of so many children.

Special video content – “Love Works” and “Love Becomes,” – will be made available on social media soon. NYF will also be rolling out new content this month – pertaining to Founder’s Day, our COVID-19 responses in Nepal, and program changes coming this summer and beyond.

To keep up with the Nepal Youth Foundation and all we’re working towards together, please click here to sign up for our email list.

Mental Health Care Success Story, Part IV: Covid-19 Heros

Did you know? Ankur counselors are mental health care workers that serve the NYF children at Olgapuri Children’s Village and the New Life Center, provide life-skills training to students in vocational and career training, helped survivors of the 2015 earthquake, and were instrumental in developing therapeutic interventions for the young girls NYF rescued from kamlari bondage!

Welcome to Part 4 of NYF’s Mental Health Month series, featuring the amazing frontline mental health care workers running Ankur Counseling Center from lockdown. (Click here to read Part 1, featuring Chhori Laxmi Maharjan; Part 2, featuring Sumitra Dhakal; and Part 3, featuring Shristi Shrestha if you missed them!)

For our final installment, meet Shraddha Pradhan, another relative newcomer who learned about Ankur through her university.

It has always made her happy to be around children. She is touched by their innocence and loves the smiles on their faces.

“However,” she says, “there are many children out there who are going through vulnerable situations, and have been victims of violence, losing the smile on their face. They are facing trauma… I want to put my effort and help these children in some ways.”

After receiving trainings at Ankur during school, Shraddha knew this would be the perfect place to “explore and enhance [her] knowledge, learn, and build opportunities in the field of psychology.” Ankur would help her learn to be an excellent counselor for children “with the help of experienced professionals who mentor and guide me to enhance my knowledge.” Chhori and Sumitra have created a family environment at Ankur, and they encourage Shraddha to do better every time with gentle, personal guidance and supervision.

Lockdown makes keeping that family dynamic a little tricky. “Life in lockdown is not very easy,” Shraddha says. “I do have anxiety sometimes, but I manage to take care of it [with] different activities that I enjoy doing. I’m enjoying working from home and spending quality time with my family.” She’s conducting tele-counseling sessions with the NYF children who are also in lockdown, and she is catching up on administrative tasks like reports and other documentation. “I frequently make check-in calls to house parents at Olgapuri and help them to care for their own self,” she adds.

The promise of a long, fulfilling career helping restore the smiles to children’s faces – that’s what Shraddha loves most. “I get to connect with children and their warm welcome with smile when they come for sessions,” she says. “And after sessions. That’s the best part of my job.”

NYF is so grateful to have devoted mental health care team members like Chhori, Sumitra, Shristi, and Shraddha continuing to work hard from home during Nepal’s countrywide lockdown – and we know their communities are grateful for them, too. These mental health professionals, and others like them across the world, have rolled up their sleeves to do tough work during this pandemic. They may not be directly fighting the virus, but they’re fighting the anxiety, despair, turmoil, and mental anguish that comes hand-in-hand with crisis. Thanks to their hard work, the rest of NYF’s staff members in Nepal are staying strong and keeping our children safe. Dhanyabad, Chhori, Sumitra, Shristi, and Shraddha!

To help Shraddha and the rest of the Ankur team continue this important work 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 2 of our Mental Health Month series

Read Part 3 of our Mental Health Month series

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!