About Us - A Child's Life Foundation

A Child's Life Foundation is the USA's support organization for Social Development Campaign Nepal (SDC-Nepal) -- both our organizations have 501(c)(3) non-profit status.
We cooperate to change the lives of Nepalese people.

SDC was established in 1999 and has been involved with empowering underprivileged children for the last few years. It is registered with the Government of Nepal and affiliated with the Social Welfare Council under the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Government of Nepal.

Our Team

Jeevan Bista

Jeevan Bista was born at the far eastern region of Nepal, called Chumlung village of Khotang district in 1972. This is a hilly district with high mountains and rocky hills. Life is hard as there is no road access, electricity and other basic necessities. It is about 1000 kilometers from Kathmandu valley. One has to travel 20 hours by car and 2 days' trekking to reach this village.

His parents are farmers. He studied in a nearby primary school and secondary school up to grade 10. It was a 3-hour walk to Chisapani Secondary School. He graduated in 1989.

Later, when he came to Kathmandu, the peaceful revolution for democracy and against direct rule of King Birendra was in progress. He enrolled in Law School in Kathmandu. In 1992 he joined a weekly newspaper namely Sarita Saptahik. He was a reporter, and then became a co-editor. He was involved in reporting, desk top designing, marketing, distributing, and press handling. He wrote the column in Shree Sagarmatha Daily, The Samacharpatra Daily, Matribhumi Weekly and other newspapers as a means for supporting himself during school. In 1996 he graduated with his degree in Law from Tribhuwan University. He completed postgraduate work in Sociology and Anthropology in 1998 from the same university.

He became a member of the editorial team of a college journal, "Discourse." While he was a student, he and some classmates started an NGO, called "Social Development Campaign Nepal." They published a monthly magazine, called "Asia magazine." A year after everyone graduated the magazine folded. He started his own publishing house, called "Deekshya publications. He published and edited magazines like "Asia Times," "Construction and Engineering," and “The Inspirer," which is an English magazine focused on children, students and education.

He married Asmita and has two children. In 2000 he established another company "Media Home Pvt. Ltd." and started a television program production which buys time from Nepal Television to broadcast his weekly program on economy, called “The Business Hour,” and has nationwide viewing.

In 2004 he became re-involved with Nepal’s social issues and started producing and broadcasting a social program called "Parivartan" (The Change). This is a weekly program focusing on working children, gender, HIV, public health issues and poverty. These two TV programs are still being aired.

He visited nine countries within his 10-year media career and produced more than 500 episodes of TV programs, 150 documentaries on social issues, including working children, and directed a few TVCs.
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Krishna Prasad Lohani

Krishna Prasad Lohani was born April 24, 1972, in Nuwakot, a rural area of Nepal.
Krishna went to school far from his village for 10 years. He had to cross rivers and walk over an hour and a half daily to get there. As a result Krishna and his brother were the only two siblings to complete their schooling from the village.

He then went to Kathmandu in 1989 and attended Law school at Tribhuvan University.
He was admitted to this school, and due to lack of funds, worked during class time for the first year. After that, he went to night school at the same university, so he could work during the day at a carpet factory to support himself. This job was quite difficult as it required great strength to carry huge rolled carpets up and down different floors in the factory.

One day while walking in Thamel, Krishna met with a friend about different job and was introduced to the man who got him into the trekking industry. He worked menially for awhile and then kept getting promoted.
Working this job made school easier as the job was less physically taxing. By the second year he became an associate lawyer and the company he was working for used him in this capacity. He continued his studies for three more years and became a fully accredited lawyer. He completed his law degree in 1996 from Tribhuvan University.

At this time he was making a little more money and was able to buy some of the street children some food and necessities. Krishna's motivation was the reality that he could've been one of them without the help of his parents who encouraged him to go to school.

In 1988 Krishna and his brother opened a school in their village to make it easier for children to get to school and complete schooling to the age of nine, when they would be able to walk further to the next school.

As he made more money he continued helping more children in the street and was involved with supporting children in different areas of Nepal.

In 1999, Krishna married Kamala Adhikari, who is a nurse and helps the children involved in Krishna's projects.
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Shoshana was born in 1951 in Miami, Florida, USA. She now lives in Austin, Texas, USA.

Shoshana has been a massage therapist for over 25 years, as well as a Shamanic practitioner. She currently teaches workshops on Shamanic healing and has a private practice.

She is concerned about the future of the world and keeping alive hope for peace and shared resources around the world.

She believes helping children get an education gives them better opportunities for their future in enabling them to have enlightened choices.
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Kamala Adhikari

Kamala was born in a remote village in the Gorkha district of Nepal in 1974.
She was encouraged to go to school by her parents, which at that time was considered modern. Most girls would end up married at an early age at that time.

Kamala was impressed at an early age by the healing work of her father and grandmother, who worked with children using traditional ayurvedic medicines that they collected from the jungles.

Her father started a cardamom farm which supported Kamala and her five siblings through school and college.

Kamala finished 10 years of school, and afterwards was accepted to the Bir Hospital Nursing College for a three-year nursing course. After graduation she worked at a private hospital called the Kathmandu Model Hospital for a year to gain more practical knowledge. She also went back to her remote village to work as an instructor at a community level health manpower development school. Kamala worked there for a year.

Kamala joined a government job as staff nurse in a remote village of Tanahyn district at the Bandipur Hospital. During this time she also went back to her home village during holidays to help bring health awareness to pregnant women. A great challenge in these villages was the lack of equipment, medicine and hospital setting. The local people used to get care at home with the use of locally available materials. Many complications existed during pregnancy, and infant mortality rates were high.

She later worked in another remote village of Gorkha at Primary Health Care Center which was near her parents village. She worked there for the first year of her married life.
The focus at the time was on acquiring equipment, medicine and infrastructure of the health care center in coordination with the Ministry of Health district public office and the local people. Once this was accomplished, they could get health care workers to come for a few months at a time per year, whereas before, no one came.

In 2002 she was transferred to Kanti Children's Hospital and started to live with her husband's family (Krishna Lohani). She became an expert on child care.

Kamala then completed her Bachelor of Nursing degree(Hospital Nursing).
She continues to work at Kanti Children's Hospital and different orphanages in the Kathmandu Valley. She also teaches at the Nursing Hospital, as well as being an administrator at the new Cooperative Hospital in Kathmandu.
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Binod Khanal

Binod Khanal was born in 1973 at Satiswara 1, Tanahu district and educated in nearby school up to grade 10. After the completion of his school education, he came to Kathmandu in 1990 for his further education and entered law school.

He completed graduation in law in 1995, graduated in education in the year 1997, and earned a postgraduate degree in sociology and anthropology in 1998 from the Tribhuwan University.

During his higher education he worked for the financial resources needed to continue the education. He worked in several private companies.

He practiced his legal profession as the advocate of Supreme Court of Nepal and associated with the SDC Nepal since its establishment. He interacted with children during his work as media producer. He has been associated with the audiovisual production work for television and documentary production in more than 600 episodes.

He married Shanti and has one son and one daughter. Shanti teaches the children in a school nearby their home at Kalanki Kathmandu.
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Asmita

Asmita (Chitra Kumari Thapa) was born in 1974 at Simpani village, Khotang District. She completed her school education at 1994 and came to Kathmandu for her higher education. In the year 1995 she joined Tribhuwan University, Padma Kanya College at Bag Bazar, Kathmandu and completed higher education in the year 1998. She married in 1997 and has one son and one daughter.

She worked hard to arrange her financial resources during her education working in different educational institute.

Now she has own poultry farm and is self-sustained. Her poultry business has made her a good women entrepreneur in Nepal. She has been associated in this organization since 2000.
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Subash Dhakal

Subash Dhakal was born in 1970 at Shreenath Kot village of Gorkha district.
This district is a hilly district, and he had to walk about one hour to go to school
He completed grade 10 on 1990, and came to Kathmandu to pursue education and future.

In 1991 he joined Tribhuwan University for higher education. He completed graduation in 1997 in economics and earned a postgraduated degree in 1998. He married to Parbati in 1998 and has one son and one daughter.

He did different work to complete his education and established himself as a good entrepreneur. Now he is engaged in a cooperative bank. His involvement in the cooperative is to widen lending to the poorer strata of the society as much as possible.
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