THE GOOD PARTNERSHIPS

  This piece was published in January 2020 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  Investing in a champion: Keshav Thapa | Sharing4good We started the first partnership column of the decade with an urgent appeal that, in reality, is an amazing opportunity for corporate houses of all kinds, from banks to insurance companies to cement producers to all major hotels and travel agencies to private colleges: sponsor Keshav Thapa to be able to play in the upcoming Paralympics games in Tokyo 2020. Who is Keshav first of all and why should you sponsor him?   Keshav is a para-tennis table player and he is the best player in his own category in Nepal and perhaps, if we had held the Para-South Asian games, he would have proved he is also one of the players in the entire region. As the country is celebrating a new sports renaissance, it is high time we started taking notice of adaptive athletes as well, athletes with disabilities that are as well, put...

  This piece was published in December  2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  IVD 2019: AN INCLUSIVE VOLUNTEERING FOR ALL | Sharing4good The celebrations of International Volunteering Day 2019, IVD 2019 that, like every year are held on the 5 th of December, offered a blueprint on how to foster collaborations, synergies to create awareness about the important role volunteers play in the society. Celebrations could also be leveraged as a catalyst to further bring about new partnerships among all the stakeholders engaged in Nepal in the quest of promoting volunteerism. Here few suggestions from IVD 2019 and one proposition for the future. Coordination is key: Under the banner of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, United Nations Volunteer, UNV, brought together all the stakeholders, partnering for example with the National Youth Council, the government body mandated to support the development of youth, and with national and int...

  This piece was published in November  2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  Innovative Partnership for Social Inclusion | Sharing4good For not for profit organizations is not easy to partner with the private sector. It often depends on finding a common cause that align the work of the not for profit with the mission of the corporate counterpart as well as being able to build personal relationship, itself something that often is challenge itself. Frankly speaking is also about sheer luck. The recently inaugurated Aloft Kathmandu Thamel proved to be a generous and supportive partner of adaptive sports athletes, sportswomen and sportsmen working very hard, pushing themselves day in and day out to reach the best of their capabilities, often with excellent results. Aloft is a boutique hotel brand of the biggest hotel group in the world, Marriot, a corporation itself leading in the field of social inclusion and diversity. ENGAGE has...

  This piece was published in September 2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  http://sharing4good.org/article/great-job-great-job-jawalakhel-wheelchair-sport-club On the 7 th of September, the Jawalakhel Wheelchair Sports Club, J.W.S.C., a local association promoting adaptive sports for persons living with disabilities organized the 1 st Inter Valley Wheelchair Basketball Tournament at St. Xavier School. It was the first time that J.W.S.C. organized such an event and it was a glorious success. The event not only had the participation of two new teams, a great development as more and more youth living with disabilities decided to get into sports, but also saw a great efforts from the organizers to attract and include persons living without disabilities, involved them through fun wheelchair basketball games. Practicing wheelchair basketball is not only entertaining but also a great way to discover and understand more about disability ...

  This piece was published at the end of August 2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  Promoting Inclusive Education | Sharing4good A new batch of ENGAGE Corps involved with Learning with Fun has been inducted and all of them are currently undertaking the preparatory capacity building component before the start of one long year service in the field of inclusive education. Learning with Fun is a small pilot project now in its second edition that attempts to enhance the social emotional learning of children with learning and developmental disabilities. With social emotional learning we refer to key components of a process of personal growth that help a child to deal properly and effectively with their emotions and relationships with others. While subjects based learning, traditionally imparted through classroom based activities remains essential for children with all types of disabilities, often neglected of their rights to quality and...

   This piece was published in the first half of August 2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:   PROMOTING YOUTH LEADERSHIP FOR GOOD: THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH WAY | Sharing4good There are many ways for a youth to expand its horizons, building first the required level of self-confidence and then the needed skills, social, inter personal and competence based, that are needed to pursue meaningful and satisfactory careers. Schools offer an ideal place for starting such journey but unfortunately too often the focus is just centered on traditional forms of learning and, with many learning institutions struggling to even deliver the basic, it is hardly surprising that investing on extracurricular activities, so important for building the right skills and attitudes of youth, remains a low priority. Fortunately there are initiatives that can help change such scenario and one of the most amazing is the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Awar...

  This piece was published in April 2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the full article also here:  TURKISH AIRLINES ENGAGE EMPOWERING LEAGUE: A real opportunity for Partnership | Sharing4good Sports are one of the best ways to raise awareness on social inclusion and development and that’s why the fourth edition of the Turkish Airlines ENGAGE Empowering League, one the most significant adaptive sports initiative in the Asia Pacific region, will become a platform to advocate for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. While the details and levels of participation are still being worked out, the League is a great opportunity for corporate partners to promote social inclusion through a fresh approach. In the third edition held last year, together with strategic partners like the National Youth Council Embassy of Switzerland, Governance Facility and the title sponsor Turkish Airlines, we had a host of corporate houses, including BLC Group, Na...

  This piece was published in March 2019 on Perspectives of The Himalayan Times. You can find the piece here:  BOLD PARTNERSHIPS FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION | Sharing4good   Imagine two friends, all in their final year of their undergraduate corporate communication degree. One is a super organized type of guy while the other defines herself as “ adrenaline junkie”, super active in sports perhaps a bit too harsh on herself in getting things done. Through their community work for their university, they forge a friendship, based on mutual respect and admiration, with a peer living with disabilities. The friends realize the discrimination experienced day in and day out by persons with disabilities. They decide to step up and do something to raise awareness about social inclusion and disability rights. They rally their class mates and pitch the idea of organizing a different, more inclusive sport event. This is how the idea of “ It’s OK to be U” is born, a two days event...