FATHER OF MANY
When I was six years old, I asked my mother for money to buy toys at the local fair. Instead of responding, she hugged me and cried. That was the first time I understood how poor we were. I felt bad, and pretended I didn’t want to go to the fair anymore.
I had a difficult childhood. My father died when I was just one, leaving my mother to raise four children on her own. One of my sisters passed away, too. Devastated, my mother followed soon after. I became an orphan at the age of 10.
I dropped out of school to work in farms and help my siblings. But the income wasn’t sufficient. So I headed to India at the age of 12 in search of better opportunities.
I took whatever work I could find. I carried cement. I worked on a bus. I worked in spite of heat and starving hunger. I never bought new clothes, never had toys, and never enjoyed a fancy meal. For years, I worked hard and sent money to my siblings back home.
One day, I met Maggie Doyne while she was volunteering on a child welfare project in northern India. Nepal’s civil war had just ended, and we both wanted to help the children who had suffered from the war. We went back to Nepal together and started the Kopila Valley Children’s Home and School.
Now we work with kids who were just like me. They were born into poverty, but I’m happy to know they never have to go through everything I did. No child should be deprived of an education, love, and care. It’s my life’s mission to make a difference in their lives and to give them the childhood I never had.