Kathmandu: Manish Poudel comes from a humble middle-class family where parents worked hard to provide good education to their children. After completing his high school (grade 10) from Lunar English Boarding School in 2019 in Chitwan he came to Kathmandu to study grade XI and XII in Uniglobe Secondary School. Pursuing Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Millennium Model College in Chitwan at the moment, Manish says that it was while he was still in high school that he actually developed a passion for social work and community development. “I decided to pursue education that would allow me to work directly with people and organizations that aimed to improve lives of those in the community,” Manish said, explaining why he chose to study Sociology at undergraduate level in Chitwan.
The same passion drove Manish Poudel to found Saral Nepal, a not-for-profit organization registered at the Social Welfare Council of Nepal, whose areas of focus are access to education, improved healthcare, economic empowerment and sustainable livelihoods of people. “We actually work for the advancement and improvement of society through thoughtfully curated agendas,” Poudel, who is the chair of Saral Nepal, said. “We understand that there are different problems in a society and they have to be dealt with different approaches. We work to solve the problems in such a way that it leaves an impact for generations.”
Himself a young activist, Manish Poudel says youths are the soul of his organization. “Our primary agenda is to bring youths together for change. We involve youths in leadership programs, social services, and training,” he said. Saral Nepal also works to address issues of drug abuse among the youths and it has also launched leadership development campaigns for youths besides contributing to women empowerment by providing them handicraft training. Saral Nepal has organized many health camps to provide free-of-cost treatment to the people. For the people belonging to the marginalized communities such as Dalits, Saral Nepal has implemented projects that help to generate employment for them. “There is no doubt that living standards of marginalized communities must be improved. The only way to do this is by availing them employment opportunities or by providing them skills through which to generate employment,” Poudel said. “We aim to work more for this community in the future.”
To contribute to employment generation, Saral Nepal offers vocational training, implements skill-building programs and supports small-scale entrepreneurship to create job opportunities.
Manish Poudel founded Saral Nepal when he was only 19. It started this way. Manish came back home to Chitwan from Kathmandu where he was studying in grade 12 during the Covid-19 lockdown. Then he, along with a group of friends, started to make short videos showing difficulties people faced due to lockdown and calling for help where necessary. Two years later, when the situation became normal, they decided to start a formal organization. “At that time, I had a group of 50 young and energetic teams. I made short movies for one and half years. When the situation became normal, we decided to open an organization whose only goal would be to serve society. And we named it Saral Nepal,” Manish Poudel said.
Another driving factor for him was this realization of how many people in his own locality and district were still deprived of basic education and resources. “I went to a good school in Chitwan and Kathmandu. But I saw during the Covid-19 lockdown that many others in my community were struggling for basic education and basic needs,” he said. “Then I decided I must do something and I must start it from my own birthplace.” Manish says continuing bachelor’s degree in Kathmandu could have opened other career prospects for him but the urge to return to the hometown was irresistible. “I felt that true change happens at the grassroots level. I was drawn back to Chitwan to create an impact where it was needed. My return to Chitwan from Kathmandu was a conscious decision to humanize social work,” he said.
In the three years since Saral Nepal was founded, it has carried out a number of activities including programs focused on education, youth empowerment, and community development. For example, it organized a Women Health Awareness Campaign, where more than 100 women participated. The Youth Leadership Campaign was launched in different schools in Bharatpur for 21 days which directly benefited more than 1000 youths. Anti-Drug Awareness Campaign and Women and Youth Empowerment Project were other notable programs. Saral Nepal aims to make Chitwan a plastic-free district. Therefore its future program is going to be focused on this.
Manish says that it is difficult to design and implement such programs because of two main reasons. One is this flawed public perception that NGOs are money-gobbling machines and they do not do anything good for the people. “First, we need to come above this perception. Only those in social service sectors know how terribly false this perception is. Most of the time you have to generate resources by yourself, sometimes you have to take loans.” Second challenge is related to funding and financial sustainability. The funding challenge is so overpowering that sometimes you feel like giving up. But the sense of ‘you should not give up whatever the challenges’ keeps you rooted to the work,” he said. According to Manish, government bureaucracy and policies are also as supportive as should be for those who want to contribute to social service.
Manish has a simple dream. He wants to do something that actually makes a difference in the lives of the people in a real sense. He wants to achieve this dream through Saral Nepal. “Nothing is easy. But youths like us must dream for our community and country. We must do whatever we can from our side,” he said. “When your aim is to do good to the society, my hope is there will always be a positive outcome.”
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