Students Take Workshops on Social Issues and Financial Planning

HCC Nepal Student Workshop In collaboration with The Umbrella Foundation and additional funding from StartUp4Kids Nepal, HCC Signature Students have been participating in Aflateen workshops, created by the nonprofit Aflatoun. An international organization, Aflateen provides social and financial education to help empower millions of children and young adults worldwide. We’ve partnered with The Umbrella Foundation, an NGO in Kathmandu founded by Irish social activists catering to at-risk Nepali children, to participate in youth Aflateen workshops.

Scheduled to continue throughout the spring, HCC students have taken two Aflateen workshops with students from The Umbrella Foundation so far. HCC hosted The Umbrella Foundation at our youth home Khushi Ghar for the workshop on peer pressure. An important topic to address, especially for teenagers, our students shared stories about their own experiences facing peer pressure. Together, students discussed strategies to address peer pressure in their own communities and activities.

HCC Nepal Student Workshop Drawing Next up, students will have the opportunity to attend financial planning workshops from Aflateen to help empower them with information about successful financial planning as they approach graduating from school and getting their first jobs.

Our thanks to Aflatoun, StartUp4Kids and The Umbrella Foundation for these great opportunities for students to empower themselves with new information and life skills.

Finally the day arrived and we had to arrive at the venue by 3. We rushed to the models and did the final fittings. By that time, Dinesh Uncle, Hira Aunt and Bruce Uncle had arrived. As my sequence was on the 4th we had a huge rush backstage that let me meet them only for a brief minute and we couldn’t even click a picture together. Show started at 7. After the third sequence we had the models change into our designs. Finally, our design was on the runway, and we walked at the end of the sequence with our showstopper, Simpal Kharel. While walking on the runway, there were a huge number of audiences, included; designers, press media, journalists, photographers, ambassadors, etc. After our sequence, we went backstage and we really had a roller coaster of emotions. All those sleepless nights, stresses, no meal days and all the difficulties we went through were finally over. It was worth everything. This concludes my three years of learning and we had the chance to showcase it to the crowd and people. After our sequence we finally had the time to breather. All along these past three months it felt as if somebody had put on something in our neck as we were suffocating but now it felt as if it had been let go. We could breathe in peace.

After the runway we had a huge feast and that tasted like the best meal that I had for the entire life.