This may come as a surprise…but in addition to our adventures in bamboo shelters, Eva Nepal still has it’s regular programs going. This week our Gaky’s Light Fellows graduated from 12^th grade and from their fellowship.

Two years ago, we received 415 applications for the 12 fellowships that we awarded to Nirajan, Anju, Pabitra, Puja, Sandip, Ramesh, Bhagwan, Krishma, Shristhi, Sabina, Narayan, and Asmita. Each of them has an incredible life story, and within the next few weeks, I hope we will be posting a tumblr that profiles each of them as well as the eighteen GL fellows before them.

The class of 2015 had a special bond, because it was when they arrived that we established the GL community house.  This batch as lived there together and become a true family, and bonded with a handful of wonderful foreign teaching residents who lived with them – Noam and John, Mary, MJ. While most of our past fellows came from Pokhara, this class comes from all over the country. Anju is the first young woman to leave her very conservative community in Janakpur to study higher education in a city sixteen hours away. Nirajan’s home is in remote Dolpa, and he’d been living on his own in Pokhara since he was twelve, performing at the top of his class. Each of our kids’ stories is unique and beautiful. You couldn’t dream them up.

These young adults have changed tremendously since they first came together in 2013. At the beginning, basic life skills like arranging a cooking schedule and working out group living issues were new and difficult. Their behavior was segregated heavily by gender. I’ve watched their dress and their mannerisms become urban, confident, progressive. In their weekly Saturday workshops they’ve learned how to use a computer, spell check, do interviews, plan events, speak in front of a group. We’ve taught sections on body language and online image crafting. A number of our fellows have published articles in youth journalism international, including reporting on the morning of the earthquake and on the aftermath shortly thereafter. Last summer, they all did one-month professional internships in sectors ranging from software engineering to child welfare to public health and journalism. Four of them did their internships in Kathmandu.

But I think the thing that had the most significant and lasting impact was the one where we did the least work: the community house. Each birthday was a whole-house affair. The girls wear each other’s clothes. All of the boys staying in Pokhara are moving in together, except for one who got a job in a nearby youth hostel. The peer community they’ve gained from this transformational two years together is obviously going to be a part of their lives forever.

With this graduating class, we’re bringing Gaky’s Light to an end, at least for now, so that we can focus on dental care, which is our more scalable program. But boy am I going to miss these kids. I am so proud of them. I am going to miss our sleepovers and henna parties. I’m going to miss eating breakfast in Connecticut over chat with them while they eat dinner in Pokhara. At least I know they will be keeping my social media pages full of news (work that online image crafting, kiddoes) and keeping in touch with each other.

GL alumni speaker Kiran Banstola

Their graduation featured lots of speakers: male, female, alumni, parent, me, and our featured speaker, Ramesh Khadka from Right 4 Children, who told his unbelievable life story of growing up on the streets of Kathmandu for ten years and then becoming a very successful social worker with street children.

Instead of going for a day-long celebratory outing like last year, we decided to spend the afternoon at a refugee camp in Pokhara that is housing earthquake victims from the ravaged epicenter in western Gorkha. Our fellows bought and served afternoon snacks.  The Gurung areas of Gorkha have a unique culture, language, and dress. Many of the older people don’t speak Nepali. There were some stunning faces in the crowd. I let the kids and counselors use my camera – I didn’t take all these photos.

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But I did take this one below, one of my all time favs. The woman in the white shirt kept laughing every time I tried to shout 1-2-3 in their Gurung dialect. Watching her through the viewfinder made me start laughing too. That of course made her laugh harder, which made me laugh harder, and soon this entire group of people couldn’t stop laughing. I love this picture.

And this one…

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