When I was an undergrad student, the founder of my college had always said that education is not essentially a tool to be successful in life but to make a contribution to people, and Colleges exist for the sake of those who couldn’t go to Colleges.When I reflect on myself, the fact that I am now a graduate student at MIIS and had this opportunity to actually witness the peacebuilding process in Nepal, made me aware of the necessity and responsibility to fulfill my role to send messages and contribute actively to solutions in disparities and social injustice in Nepal.

However, after coming back from Nepal, I have been struggling with the sense of helplessness of myself. All the things I have encountered in Nepal, such as poverty, discrimination, pollution, lack of sanitation….were too much for me to reflect seriously on.

Even though our main objective of this course is not to directly save them but to learn the situation surrounding Nepali people, I was not able to wipe out that feeling of helplessness.

It was at this time that I heard from my mom that she had donated 10 wasted postcards to NGO called National Federation of UNESCO in Japan (cooperates with UNESCO in some projects), which donation of 1 postcard worth 7 pencils for children in Nepal. She was fascinated by the fact that things that supposed to be gone to trash would help educating children in developing countries, and told me that she would never paid attention to that newspaper ad if it were not for me. Imagining about those pencils given to children that we have met gave me strength to believe in my role, and sense of appreciation arose for participating in this project with wonderful members.

Value is not something that exists outside us, it should be discovered and determined by oneself.