By mid-August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Nepalese had been affected by a massive flood. Many houses were destroyed and our country’s rice production was be adversely affected. Upon learning this news, the Samaanta family made a plan to collect funds to support the flood victims. We set a target of Rs. 30,000. We planned to buy some food and medicine from our collected amount and dispatch it to the organizations working in the most affected areas.
In order to meet our target, we decided to divide ourselves into three groups: the crowdfunding group, the personal group and the activity group. The personal group raised funds by asking their families and relatives. The activity group created paper crafts for sale. Finally, the crowdfunding group raised funds by asking their friends and the general public. We decided that each group should have their own target to meet the collective target of Rs. 30,000. Our targets were 5,000, 10,000, and 15,000, respectively, based on the number of volunteers per group. Two of us wanted reflect on our experience in this process:
Dipesh:
I was a member of the activity group and we had about 8 members total. Initially, I felt that we would not able to collect the target amount because we only had three days to achieve it. But we had successful planning meetings so we executed our plan well. Inspired by our volunteering activities at Bhanodaya, we decided to make paper craft products to sell. We had fun making greeting cards, photo frames, wall decorations, and other things.
Pictures of the crafts that we made during this process to raise the fund.
Through the help of our kind hearted friends, we were able to collect about Rs, 7000 on the very first day, which helps to increase our confidence level. To help achieve this goal, I sold my crafts to friends back to home. Since I had been doing paper crafts even before this project and posting those pictures on Facebook, they were immediately interested. On the second day, we continued our deeds by organizing an exhibition in our office and also by conducting “Bhatbhateni sale” in order to spread our works. The keen interest of TFN fellows and their presence in our art and crafts exhibition also made our exhibition a success
Preparing for art and crafts exhibition
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Our friends selling crafts inform of the Bhatbhateni store
Social media, too, helped in our fundraising program. We posted on Facebook about our work along with pictures of our crafts. Some of our Facebook friends learned about our products through social media, including many Teach for Nepal fellows. At the end of the 3rd day, we exceeded our target and had a total of Rs. 16,000 from the activity group. I think my prior experiences collecting funds for Bhanodaya School was helpful.
Jeni:
I was in the crowdfunding group. There were about 18 other fellows in my group. We planned to raise Rs. 15000 through crowdfunding. I started by collecting donations from my hostel mates, school friends, and college friends. It was quite difficult and often awkward to convince them to give money to us. Some of them said they had already donated to other groups and others were interested in donating food and clothes but not money. I had never been involved in such type of work before; it was my first experience so I wasn’t sure how to convince them that the raised funds would really reach victims. Unfortunately, there were many other cases in which donations have been misused in Nepal. Despite all those obstacles. we successfully raised about over fifty thousand. We also took some basic needs from those who offered such as dried foods and clothes. I learned so much from this experience. I picked up skills like how to be persuasive and honest at the same time. It was really satisfying too in the end when we raised a lot and I will be even happier when I see it in the hands of the people who need it. I would love to do this kind of work again.
Overall, in the hustle and bustle of a city like Kathmandu, we had not expected to find such kind hearts; everyone was more helpful than we had anticipated . so we did not face many obstacles during this process. We had left no stones unturned to raise the fund through the depth of our hearts. This was very good experience in this field and it will help us in future if we need to do this program again.
We collected about Rs.50,000 and some dry foods and clothes. We do not want to send money to organizations directly because we are worried it will be misused and not reach the people most in need. At the moment, all the collected money and goods are currently in our office in Dillibazar. We haven’t been able to send the funds because the organization we originally wanted to send it to is no longer accepting new donations. We are currently vetting for a new organizations. We hope that we will be able to send the collected items in the coming months.
To conclude, it was a great privileged to work in the relief work for the flood victims of Terai region. We would like to thank to all the kind hearted persons and our well-wishers who help in our small initiative for the relief of flood victims. I want to give special thanks to TFN fellows who made our art and crafts exhibition success. It was the perfect example to verify the typical Nepalese features: Unity in Diversity.
Dipesh Bhujel is a fourth cohort fellow currently pursuing his Bachelors in Computer Science and Information Technology (Bsc.CSIT) from St.Xaviers College, Kathmandu. He is originally from Sisneri, Lalipur.
Jeni Shrestha is a first cohort fellow from Kothdanda, Lalitpur and currently in the final years of her Bachelors in Business Administration (BBA) from Thames College.