Message from the President

Looking back, it was actually a very risky and dangerous operation. The same helicopter that we used to go to Bhotang got into a fatal accident a week after our operation. Dr Dikshanta Prasai and Yuvraj Sharma from Kathmandu nearly got killed in the mountain during the second earthquake. Volunteers from the US, Vera Leader and a friend, Nepolina, got acute diarrhea and needed to be evacuated from our work zone immediately.

I would like to salute all of you who went to the ground and helped people without regard for your own safety. It was purely selfless volunteer work dedicated to humanity. You need to have a unique mindset and a truly altruistic personality to leave your daily comfort and subject yourself to such risk in order to create a better life for the less fortunate.

I was quite fortunate to associate with many such personalities, and I am indebted to them for allowing me to work with them for the last one year. Despite working with volunteers of diverse backgrounds, I found one striking commonality with all of these individuals. All of them were deeply dedicated and had a strong desire to help others. They typically expect less from others and avoid media attention. They have the ability to adapt and function in any extreme condition.

As an example, probably very few know about Dr Baroon Rai. He is a talented young intensive care physician from California. After hearing the news of the massive earthquake, Baroon didn't think twice about taking time off without pay from the ICU. He raised about $20,000 and supplies from his own hospital and boarded a plane on the way to ground zero.

Another orthopedic and sports surgeon, Dr Sandesh Pandit from Oregon, headed out to Nepal carrying supplies worth $30,000. The three of us met in transit en route to Nepal. Similarly, I met Dr Rashmi Thapa, a cardiologist from Kansas, Dr Ganesh Chaudhary, Dr Binod Dhungana and Dr Dinesh Subedi while working in remote Nepal.

On a special note, I must mention that Padam Regmi and Sagar Kandel from America Nepal Helping Society travelled to Nepal immediately after the earthquake and worked day and night distributing food and relief materials to the people of Sipapokhare. Thank you for your service.

I would also like to recognize Dr Navin Sharma, who is in Kathmandu, for providing logistic support and managing the supply chain during our initial operation. I must recognize pediatric psychiatrist Dr Arun Kunwar at Kanti Hospital and the renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Bhagawan Koirala for taking time out of their busy schedules to manage and monitor our reconstruction project.

While working as a team in Nepal, we realized the need to establish a formal process to rebuild shattered infrastructure. We therefore made the decision to register Mission Rebuild Nepal as a non-profit organization in both the USA and Nepal.

Volunteers like Rosa Matheson from the UK, Maxime Reginald from France, Max Clark from New York and Dr Prakash Karki from Indiana stayed in the village for weeks providing support to the project. These volunteers had nothing to do with the people of Sindhupalchowk personally, and yet they travelled all the way to Kathmandu and Sipapokhare, spending their hard-earned money and leaving their jobs and families behind. Their sole objective was to help people they never knew.

Mission Rebuild Nepal has been actively working and providing service to the community every day since it was formed. It was not an easy task to accomplish whatever we have achieved so far, considering our initial financial constraints, Nepal's political and bureaucratic disturbances, the extreme geographical setting, poor road access and the border economic blockade.

Being a new organization, we also had the challenge of proving ourselves a credible, transparent, goal oriented organization with zero tolerance for corruption and fund mismanagement. In light of widespread corruption, the past failures of numerous similar non-profit organizations and a poor fund management history in Nepal, it was natural for the public to see us with suspicion and uncertainty. I hope that we have been able to change that perception towards us.

It was only possible by devoting over 10,000 expert hours from our board members and volunteers. I would like to thank our volunteer engineers, overseers, field officers, social mobilizers, project managers, village coordinators and office assistants for their service. Many thanks to our country director Kamal Bhatta and former country director Kirti Thapa for leading the Nepal team. As a result of our collective effort, I am glad to announce that we are one of the very few organizations to operate a project of this scale at zero admin cost.

• —Encourage people around you. Talk to your friend, your coworker, your boss, family members, your children, uncle, aunt and neighbour. You will be surprised to see how deep an interest the people around you have in helping others.
• —Spread positive news. We are on social media: like us on Facebook, share our stories, visit the website.
• —Raise questions, critique our work, review finances and provide feedback.
• —Become our volunteer. We desperately need people for public relations, information management and operation support.