"Believe in yourself," Deepti Khakurel, founder of Yatra

Founder president of the youth-led organization Yatra, Deepti Khakurel is a familiar face among the 'youth circle' in Nepal. Just recently in September (2009), she was awarded the prestigious Matthew Preece and Yeshi Lama Young Conservation Leader Award from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) honoring her work in environment and conservation. She has also been involved in initiating and participating in pressure groups such as ACT NOW and Youth Pressure Campaign for Constitution Making to create pressure among the constituent assembly members for timely constitution making. She believes that we need to be responsible for our own actions and not just depend on the government or others to make things right for us. A self-proclaimed optimist, Deepti defines herself as ordinary and insists that what she has achieved so far, if taken the initiative, anybody can. V.E.N.T! Magazine talked to Deepti about Yatra, environment, nepali youth and being a woman.

How has the journey of Yatra been so far?

Nine of us started Yatra in 2004. Looking back, I now feel that our search for identity, our need to explore our potential and do something constructive for the society led us to Yatra’s inception. Right before we started Yatra, all of us were volunteering in several NGOs and by then had acknowledged our passion to work in the field of environment. But other than that, we were clueless about a lot of things. Still, we had felt the ‘professional ceiling’ during our time in other organizations and often found ourselves desperate to break free from the predefined work methods and structure. I think we were lucky that all of us were like-minded and had similar passion, thus initiating something on our own felt like an easy transition.

What were the initial days of Yatra like?

We started with really high expectation of ourselves. We thought we could start making huge differences instantly. But slowly we were confronted with many challenges—after all running an organization is not as simple as we made it to be initially (we realize that now). We were all young and inexperienced then, but we were highly motivated and confident that nothing was beyond our reach, almost naively. We did not have much money, and we did not have an office. For a long time our office was in our bags, and later we started using a friend’s room as a working space. The first four or five months we were mostly talking and exploring ideas among ourselves, not doing much work, and yet many times our discussions were interrupted to watch a cricket match instead [laughs]. It was fun. But soon, it became difficult to justify our huge time investment with no end results to show, mainly to our families. So with the aim to win their trust, and share with them what we were really planning, we organized our first program “eco-friendly visit” for our parents. We used the house of Roshan Shrestha of UN-Habitat, which is very environmentally friendly and asked Winrock to sponsor environmentally-friendly electric three-wheelers (Safa-Tempos). We also invited Kantipur media house for some media coverage. We thus picked up all of our parents, starting from Baneshwor in Safa-Tempos and took them all the way to Dallu, Swayambhu. We later also made a formal presentation to our parents at ENPHO (Environment and Public Health Organization) who presented us with a hall, where Yatra’s brochures were also distributed. We thus organized our first event and were also able to win the trust of our parents, and since then, till today, they continue to be our biggest supporters.

Why environment, and not other issues that are also affecting the youth today?

I think it began at home, where my parents taught me to always throw litter in the dustbin—as simple as that. Growing up, I was always pained to see how polluted our rivers were, and had a strong feeling that something needed to be done. Luckily, I also ended up making friends who were passionate about these issues. Later when I started getting involved in youth activities, I often found environmental issues were often neglected, and brushed aside as a ‘vegetarian issue.’ Also in developing countries, despite its importance and impact in our every day life, environmental concerns never seem to manage to reach the government’s national agenda. Somebody has to do something, and we thought, why not us?

So, are you a vegetarian?

No. [Laughs]

Are you professionally occupied anywhere else, other than Yatra?

Not at the moment, I have given up everything and again started to be fully dedicated to Yatra. I did teach in a school for 1.5 years during the beginning of my career though, as I always thought it was something one should do. I also worked at Friends of the Bagmati (FoB) for a short while and more recently with SAP International and International IDEA for a little over two years. After starting Yatra, I always felt that in order to harness my professional skills, it was important to work under somebody else, and work in a variety of teams. I, therefore, took my time at SAP, where I was working as on South Asian People Summit and at International IDEA where I was involved in Women and Constitution Building, as a part of my professional training. Also for me, despite the excellent working environment, exposure and professional networking, my inner passion to do something in the field of environment was not fulfilled during my time there. I, therefore, recently made the hard decision to leave everything else and focus on the initiatives of Yatra.

You have received many awards. Have the awards brought about additional responsibilities for you?

Yes, they have. I never thought I would get awards, never thought about it. The award from VOW Magazine was for Academic Leadership and Community Outreach. With it also came instant recognition and bigger expectations. The more recent one awarded by WWF has increased my own expectations about myself. But I have to say, this award came at the right time—just when I decided to leave everything and focus on Yatra. It helped strengthen my belief that I did take the right path in deciding to leave everything and follow my passion. Though it might look like a big achievement for a young woman in urban Nepal to receive such an award, I feel there is much work for me to still do in the field of conservation.

Most of the organizations in Nepal today are dependent on grants and sponsorships. How is Yatra sustaining itself financially? If it not already, is it looking for ways to be self-sustainable?

When we first started, our vision was to run self-sustainable programs—we called it ‘Self Sustained Youth for Environmental Programs,’ and we still try to focus on doing that today. We have also been receiving small grants to run programs from the Ministry of Environment, WWF and ICIMOD, which keeps us running. At times we also produce and sell t-shirts in order to raise funds for our events, during which we charge registration fees; this helps cover our day-to-day expenses, and the transportation cost of our volunteers. Plus, more recently we have made the decision to not keep Yatra limited to the typical NGO model, and work towards developing it into a entrepreneurship model, which called for some personal investments. It is therefore also a new challenging situation for us.

Who are the key people at Yatra. Are they paid? If not, how do you manage to keep them in the organization?

We have nine members and three full-time staff. Apart from that, on average, we almost always have between three to six volunteers. And no, the volunteers are not paid, although their transportation costs are covered. We provide a space for the volunteers to work on and implement their own ideas and an opportunity to take responsibility for their initiatives. This creative freedom and sense of responsibility, I think, has been a strong motivating factor for them to stay.

Most organizations are very academic and advocacy oriented. Don't you think that youth today need a different approach to awareness raising? And, besides, is awareness raising alone enough? 


One of the main initiatives of Yatra is awareness raising, as we feel changes can only be brought about when there is awareness among the general public. But we are aware that not everybody will be interested in environment, and knowing that environment can be fun too, we try to implement creative and amusing initiatives. We also don’t impose ideas and concepts related to environment on everybody. Yatra mainly provides a platform for youth and young entrepreneurs to come together and explore their potential and interests. We believe that environment is connected to every aspect of our lives, and that is how we introduce it to people who come to Yatra and our events. Participants, after understanding the significance and connection of something, slowly are motivated to get involved themselves. Also, I cannot say we are completely different from other organizations, but we work through the younger generation and motivate them to take a lead, and pass skills and awareness to them. We then provide them with a platform to interpret their learning and creatively pass it on in their own way. Doing so, we have found, helps them to develop and strengthen their organizing and communication skills.

What do you think is the biggest issue that the youth in Nepal are facing today?

Unemployment, I think, for most of the youth in Nepal today is the most important issue, and this is also leading to additional migration. One of the biggest problems with the education and social system in Nepal is that it teaches us to be ‘job seekers’ and not ‘job creators.’ This often leaves us in a dependent position, and especially in a time like now, where more factories and businesses are being closed than those opening, this can create a situation of panic. Also, other than unemployment, youth today are also faced with education and health concerns. Having said that, with youth falling under the priority group there is more support today from both national and international governments, which I hope will keep youth from getting involved in armed groups and drug abuse, and create more opportunities.

Personally, do you think climate change is for real, or is it just ‘hype’?


I think it is international politics. It cannot be ignored as ‘hyped’ but we have been unable to differentiate between what is caused by local environmental degradation and poor management, and what is indeed the impact of the global change. The positive side about the present situation where everybody is talking climate change is that it has made youth think about it and act responsibly, while the down side is that in the global context, it has provided a context for the rich industrialized to keep ‘passing the ball,’ sometimes at the cost of poorer nations.

   
How was your experience in India when you worked there after the tsunami in 2006?

My whole life I was always fascinated by the sea and wished there was one around Nepal too. But when I went to Srinagar in Nagapatnum, a tsunami-affected area in India, as a part of a SAYEN internship, I changed my mind! I felt that given how vulnerable we are already from many kinds of disasters in Nepal, exposure to additional disasters like tsunami would have left us in an even weaker position. Anyway, during my time there, I was responsible to work with the fishing community and collect case studies. Language was a major barrier there as they neither spoke Hindi nor English, and I was not acquainted with their local dialect. But by the end, the experience confirmed to me that humanity does not need a language. I was there six months after the tsunami, and yet there was much to be done. The experience was profound, and the stories of most of the tsunami-affected people were heartbreaking.  I also found that women were the ones most affected by the disaster, like is often said is the case in other disasters too.

What lessons can we learn in Nepal from the disaster management technique that was used in India?

I found that self-help groups were very effective in the community I worked in, and the government was also very quick and effective in implementing micro-finance to help the affected cope. I felt that their preparedness level was also very high, which allowed for quick response and rescue, saving lives by the thousands. I think these are all points we can learn, and we, the general public and organizations, need to find ways to work together with the government to prepare ourselves better for future disasters that are most likely to occur in Nepal, rather than leaving everything for the government to take care of.

Talking about being a woman in Nepal, how has it been for you, especially now that you are considered successful?

I would like to start by mentioning that there are opportunities too in being a woman in Nepal at the moment, in that there is now awareness about inclusion and equality. But still, like anywhere else in the world, there is still a struggle and there is a long way to go. Every profession in Nepal today provides a reflection of our society. In youth activism for example, there are many more men than women because women often times cannot take it up as a profession for various social and personal reasons. When AYON (Association of Youth Organizations, Nepal) was formed, Yatra was the only women-led organization, and later I was the only woman in the board. Also, one realization I have had is that for men, much of the planning and talking of work happens after the formal meeting is over, for example, over a cup of tea. But as a woman, it is often times uncomfortable or inconvenient to join in, and thus we are often times left out. Also, given the social role bestowed on women and the expectations, things are still not equal. I also think the sad thing is that we are still fighting with men, rather than fighting for our rights, which often times distracts us in terms of what it is we are asking for–gender equality.
Anything you would like to say to the youth?

Believe in yourself. Think big, but start small. And always remember that nothing is impossible, but it is you who has to take the initiative.

To learn more about Yatra and how you can help, go to yatra.com.np or to its Facebook page.

Photographs provided by Deepti Khakurel.