I was already planning to meet with a Nepalese Rotarian. I didn’t expect we’d have so much to talk about. I landed in Kathmandu on August 23 with plans to visit a sacred Buddhist site, do a bit of trekking, try a yoga retreat, and then meet with a member of the Rotary Club of Dhulikhel to discuss grants from our sister club Eugene Metro. Little did I know there would be an apocalyptic flood crashing down the Bhote Koshi and Trisuli rivers three days after my arrival.
The flood was nowhere near me as I toured southeastern Nepal near the Indian border, but for several days I was kept busy assuring friends and family that I was okay. When I got back to Kathmandu two weeks later, the city itself seemed completely normal, but elsewhere the relief effort was in full swing.
Ranjeev Shrestha, past president of the Dhulikhel club, leads an NGO called Disaster Aid Nepal; they learned the disaster relief business following a horrific earthquake in 2015 that leveled large swaths of Kathmandu. As per our original plan, he took me to see livestock distributed to people in poor mountain villages thanks to Eugene Metro Rotary Club. But while we were hiking to remote homesteads to look at goats, we were talking about water and sanitation in the disaster zone.
Ranjeev and his fellow Rotarians in Nepal had already begun to address the need for clean water and sanitation in flood-hit communities by sending filters and other supplies there by truck. Back in town, he took me to see the staging area where more filters and other items were awaiting shipment. Eugene Metro Rotary had quickly established a donation pipeline to support the work, and that helped with buying the stuff and hiring transportation for it.
I realized that my in-person visit and personal knowledge of Ranjeev’s team’s expertise could be useful in encouraging people to donate. I put out posts on social media encouraging friends to give, and soon more cash was rolling in. Having been an NGO leader myself, I knew of lot of people who cared about people in the global south. Equally important, they trusted my judgment.
It was a bit of luck that brought me to Nepal at just the right time, but it was the Rotary network that gave me and many others the tools needed to turn luck into action.
[Photo courtesy of Ranjeev Shrestha]
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