Tashi Tewa

It is only few months before when Dr. Govinda KC ended his fast onto hunger strike. His demands were also made evident when Dr. KC revealed his intention to make the region such as Dolpo accessible to the state’s health services when he also chose Phurwa Dolpo to end his sixth hunger strike. For this piece, we will try to examine what could be challenges and what could be the way to properly safeguard the lives of peoples living in remote region, such as Dolpo. This article will refer to our long years of living and working experiences in the remote region, both as locals and as nurses. We argue that the understanding of locals’ lives and knowledge such as that of Dolpo for effective delivery of basic health services is important to sustain the policies and institutions and activities of the government. The high-level committee formed on Nov 17, 2004 and headed by Kedar Bhakta Mathema also asked the government to relocate the institutions that have already built infrastruct...

It’s been nearly two years since I knew her. Yungdrung, normally we call her whenever we need to talk to her. ' We' denote here our friends of Students of Dolpo (SoD). Friends like Phurwa Tashi, Lhakpa, Amchi la, Wangchen, Tashi Bhuti, Pema Dolma, and so on. She has always been there actively participating whenever SoD organized any activity. She even surprised us when she and our good friend Dawa Sir sang a song, ‘Ful ko Aankha ma’ in one of the Lhosar programs. Similarly, she also participated and talked about how she felt in the Kathmandu protest, organized to remember the deaths due to the violence in Dho-Tarap. She was also there when SoD went to several remote districts: Sindhupalchowk, Dolakha and Dhading, with their earthquake relief materials. With other fellow friends, she also made sure that the optimum medical care is provided to the earthquake victims. All in all she has been very friendly and active in any community involvement that benefited locals. Yung...

On September 20 2015, while asking every Kathmanduities to reflect upon their privileges, Pranaya Rana wrote: ‘We find it difficult to identify with those in the Madhes because we have never lived the lives they have. Our privileges have insulated us from everything that they go through. Empathy is one thing, experience is another. And it is just so hard to admit that one is privileged. It means coming to terms with the unpleasant fact that perhaps it is not our innate talents that have gotten us to where we are. It is difficult to believe that we had a head start when we’ve already won the race. So we choose denial. No, they must be wrong. Their grievances are illegitimate. Structural inequalities don’t exist anymore because now, there are no seats in the Lok Sewa reserved for us. And we actively seek out faults in others. They’re lazy, they’re uneducated, they’re violent, they hate us when we’ve never hurt them. And when that doesn’t work, we choose to patronise them, treat t...