A ceremony put on by local villagers to welcome Ghimire's staff and students included songs and dances performed by local children.St. Olaf student Subhash Ghimire ’10 set out this summer to establish a camp in rural Nepal for children impacted by the country’s decade-long civil war, but he didn’t stop there. In addition to managing a 16-member team and 42 children during a successful six-week camp, he created a scholarship fund, established a library, and launched a foundation to support youth movements.
It was the experience of a lifetime, he says, that was topped off by a letter he received shortly after returning to the United States informing him that he had received a scholarship from the Vincent L. Hawkinson Foundation for Peace and Justice. He’ll use part of the $3,000 award to attend law school, but is putting a portion of it toward the scholarship fund he established for Nepalese schoolchildren.
“To be able to help the people who needed it the most was the best part of the camp,” Ghimire says. “I could see in people’s eyes how thankful they were.”
Ghimire will deliver two presentations on campus about his efforts to foster peace and social change in Nepal. The first will be held Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 4 p.m. in Holland Hall 317. The second will be part of the World Issues Dialogue held Thursday, Oct. 15, at 5:30 p.m. in Buntrock Commons, Trollhaugen Room. He will also be presenting at the European Summit for Global Transformation in Rotterdam, Netherlands at the end of November.
A summer success
Ghimire established a summer camp in Arupokhari — the remote village in western Nepal where he was born — using a $10,000 grant he received from Davis Projects for Peace, an initiative that funds student plans for grassroots projects that promote peace. Half of the camp’s 42 children were under age 10, all were under age 14, and most had lost one or both parents during the war.
Using traditional song, dance, theatre, and other teaching aids, the Fulbari Summer Camp worked to help children overcome the scars of war and the country’s caste system. The children, many of whom had witnessed their parents’ murders or lost siblings as well during the war, began to open up throughout the camp and play with new friends, Ghimire says. “The children no longer sketch guns, and instead draw books and birds. To me, that was the biggest achievement of the summer camp,” he says.
