Category Archives: Education

A Tribute to the Beginning of a New University Semester

I am experiencing some serious nostalgia these days as I see the numerous notes from friends and old colleagues about the fact that students are just around the corner, set to enter university en masse for what will hopefully be one of the most satisfying and challenging learning experiences of their lives. And while I truly grateful to spend the months of August and September in a more relaxed and less frantic state of mind, I do remember just how exciting and important this time of year can be.

Campuses will be buzzing with activity again, moving trucks will mark the weekend moving madness, the supermarket shelves will be nearly empty as student apartments are stocked, some sort of back-to-school flyer will crowd out of every mailbox on the block, orientation programs will be scrambling to get the last bits in order for the big day, information booth duty becomes a central part of your job description, and those lovely, curious, keen, bright, and energetic students will come bounding into campus, hesitantly ready to make their mark.

And as the “fresh” students collide with the tradition and culture of the old, I am also reminded just how hard that clash can feel. The sense that there may just not be any room left for newness in all the oldness. The feeling of needing to “catch-up” and get there faster to ensure you blend in and avoid any cultural blunders. The wish for someone newer than you to arrive so you can feel experienced and knowledgeable again. It sounds hauntingly familiar to my own culture shock here in Nepal actually.

So…

To my old colleagues at UBC who are working tirelessly right now – I am with you! I can sense the energy and imagine the dedication, exhaustion, and anticipation you are feeling. Keep your eye on the end of September, keep your student leaders at the front, and yourself on the sidelines. Enjoy the familiarity and the camaraderie that this time of year brings – I will miss being part of that feeling that an entire campus is poised and looking towards the same goal. Watch it amazement as it all unfolds magically and with some predictability – another year, another slice of pizza 🙂

To the campus oldies, remember to make space for all the newness. Leave room for those who follow you to step into new roles, test new ideas, and change the campus that you have so willingly cared for and loved. You made it better and they will continue your legacy – but they might also begin some legacies of their own. Support and help them do that and then get the heck out of their way – you have a new role as the shoulders on which they will need to stand.

To the campus new ones, despite what it may seem (and it may seem exceedingly chaotic, large, overwhelming, and secret-club like) your new community has the potential to change your life. And you have the potential to change it right back. You will get lots of advice – you should listen to all of it, but choose to take only what seems valuable to you. There is space for you here to find whatever it is you are looking for – space to choose, to experiment, to explore, to change your mind, to disagree, to get swept up, to lose track, to find focus, and to learn.

And I am looking forward to being back and a part of the fray next year perhaps because there is no better place to work than on a university campus!

Honouring Fridays: July 17th, 2009

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This week was difficult. A couple of experiences reminded me just how much distance remains in moving to a place where everyone has enough to eat, a warm bed, and the ability to have a small degree of choice in their own destiny. I recently read a great quote in a book, The People’s Act of Love, about what those who have never really suffered think when looking at those living in poverty. “And you thought: they’re used to it. But that was how those who suffered less always thought about those who suffered more, that they were used to it, that they no longer felt it as you did. Nobody ever got used to it. All they learned to do was to stop letting it show.” This week, I looked more closely at people around me and realized the truth of this statement. Nobody here is truly adjusted to being poor – they are just very good at disguising how it makes them feel. It can feel overwhelming and impossible to imagine how we can help millions and millions of people escape the cycles of poverty – dauntingly huge and terribly important. So this week I am reminded just how grateful I am for the basic essentials of life.

Having enough to eat. Many of the remote Districts in Nepal are facing a drastic food shortage this year. The late monsoon, still only barely having dampened the soil, will drastically reduce production and those who are subsistence farmers, producing only enough food to feed their families, will risk starvation. Land fertility is also decreasing due to increased use of harsh chemical fertlizers. It is easy to feel very distant from such basic needs when shelves are stocked high with packaged and imported foods. The “have money, will pay” philosophy wins out – those who have money will never feel the effects of going without food. It will always be those who simply cannot afford to eat anything but what they grow that will die from starvation. Our bellies are over-full. We have absolutely no reason to ever complain.
Feeling secure and safe. Recently in Kathmandu there has been a tidal wave of insecurity due to a rash of kidnappings. The fear and worry has gotten to a point where groups of citizens have taken the law into their own hands and killed people they suspected to be kidnappers only to find out that they were not. Previously, kidnappings were politically motivated and occurred between parties. But now, it seems the are more motivated by money – an easy way to extort money from wealthy families. There is nothing safe and secure about being a parent or child in Kathmandu these days. I am grateful for not feeling that my life is at risk.
My health. In the far western region of Nepal there has been a recent outbreak of rather terrible diarrhea. It started months ago but caused no alarm within the power capital of Kathmandu. It took up to a month for the government to mobilize any medical teams to address the problem. And it is now too late. They are assuming that it is a result of unsanitary drinking water (also no move has been made to rectify this problem) and are blaming the disaster on poor public awareness about sanitation. I am ever grateful for public health care and clean drinking water. We have an exceptional facilities in Canada – there is always room for improvement but I can be pretty certain that it is very unlikely that I will die from unclean water or extreme diarrhea. And that is something to be incredibly grateful for.
I got to go to school…even though I was a girl…and they spoke my language in the classroom. The government released the new budget this week, much to the anticipation of many citizens. Working in education advocacy in Nepal means that the most important number in the budget was the allocation to education. Did we see an increase? Will it be enough to carry out the promise of free and compulsory education for all Nepali children? Well, the budget came in at about 16% – not terrible, but not a great improvement. It is true that it is the most that education in Nepal has ever been allocated. But the international standard and recommended allocation is 20% of the GDP. Salaries for employees make up the bulk of this 16%, leaving little left for scholarships, textbooks, classrooms, resources, and teacher training. The quality of education depends on the quality of the government’s investment. Without a stronger investment there will continue to be girls, ethnic minorities, and Dalit children who will go without access to this basic right. If you can read this then you have many reasons to be grateful.

An opinion on the status of development work in Nepal

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I heard a statistic the other day that there were over 33,000 registered NGO’s and INGO’s in Nepal – some active and some not, but still…a very large number of folks committed, in theory, to some kind of social change.

After the past 5 months of listening, observing, understanding, and trying to make sense of it all, I must admit that I am stumped. I am utterly confused about what the purpose of all these agencies truly is. And let me speak, somewhat more in turn here for a minute, within the boundaries of my work.

I have read and digested countless statistics about access and quality of education in Nepal…bleak, bleak, and bleaker. We still have about 30% of children not enrolled in school – and of course this number does not include the number of enrolled children who are technically “on the roster” but who just don’t come to school because they are working in brick factories, have a disability that prevents them from attending school, are HIV positive, or face discrimination in the classroom because of all the above OR because of their caste, gender, or the fact that they speak their own indigenous language.

Within that 30%, the proportion of children from these excluded groups is grossly over represented compared to population numbers (and even the population numbers are skewed as the last census was done in 2001…).

So, who should be held accountable? Is it the government, who has been focused on waging a civil war for the past 10 years? The donor agencies who try to solve every problem with money? The community members, who have neither time nor energy to demand for much as they struggle to feed families and stay alive? Or the thousands of NGOs and INGOs who seem to tackle every problem in isolation…never considering for a moment that perhaps a better approach would be to pool energy and resources and collaborate.

Nepal is a country of where inaction is so common that people have been paralysed by the influx and proliferation of development agencies. The more NGOs and INGOs we can pack into this teeny country, the less responsibility we can demand from those who are truly responsible and the more chaotic, splintered and less cohesive are the voices of those who really matter.

I realize that there are limitations to centralization of services and government intervention but I feel compelled to argue that I actually think we have entered into a state of dependency here. Everyone has their own organizational or individual mission statements that inhibit the genuine work of helping people…and that is not even speaking of how this inhibits the possibility of any form of collaboration. The only way to manage the collaboration is to work through a government system where they can collect, collate, and coordinate development efforts.

Instead what we have now is what I imagine must graphically look something like the work of a leaf blower: a few scattered piles that are tossed to the air at the first hint of a breeze, not for a moment likely to stay on course and land together at the same destination.

It has become a development industry…a business in which people can secure a job as long as some blind-folded donor agency is willing to hand over the cash. We know that talk is cheap here – it doesn’t matter what is promised or by whom – it is the action that is still missing.

And yet, I can rant and rave about where I see development work faltering, but I cannot, for a moment, imagine how families and children who depend on development work for support would be impacted if it all ended.

We need leadership, vision, and action from government. It can be certain that if the government direction is strong, ethical, and humane the INGOs, NGOs, and donors will be compelled to follow…

Student Elections in Nepal

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Last week marked the annual student elections for some of the major university and college campuses in Nepal. These elections, unlike most of the student elections I have seen, are incredibly heated and tumultuous events. They are political statements of youth who through their voting align themselves with national political parties. That’s right, you heard me, ALIGNING themselves with variious national Nepali parties. The result is a highly charged, dangerous and fear festering process that looks nothing like a demoncratic voting process and more appears to resemble violent mob behaviour. Each student party is a youth wing of the major political parties and the ripe and fertile grounds of higher education institutions are used as a grooming ground for future national politicians. Through the ranks of student politicians come the national leaders. The current politicians take student elections very seriously – this is their opportunity to froth, foam, and rile the groups into a turmoil. To pit youth parties against each other and crush any chances that these youth might for a moment consider collaboration more fruitful than war.

UBC students please take note…this message is for you. You are so incredibly fortunate to be able to undertake a safe and democratic process through which you hopefully elect student leaders who sincerely care about your experience. Please imagine for a moment, as was the case in Nepal last week, that 1 student was killed while voting. He was risking life and limb to cast a vote and was killed in his student union elections. Add to that the 6 students who were seriously injured as a series of bombs exploded near various voting stations. Imagine, what it must feel like to be a university student here. Imagine the intimidation tactics that can play into election campaigns. Please, please count yourself so lucky to be part of a system that allows you to voice an opinion safely. You have peers in other countries that are not as lucky and would be ashamed to know that so many of you do not vote – that you do not take the democratic process seriously. If they can get themselves to the polls and risk death…it means you have no excuse.