The chief guest of the program was USAID Mission Director to Nepal Dr Kevin Allayn Rushing.[break]
The seven fellows are Prakash Acharya from Kathmandu, Thakur Lamichhane from Gorkha, Lali Tamang from Kavre, Sushila Tamang from Bhojpur, Krishna Dhakal from Kathmandu, Bijay Dewan Rai from Dhankhuta and Sita Adhikari from Chitwan.
The organization had announced the competition for the fellowship in December 2010, inviting proposals from promising Nepali youth in their 18-35 age brackets, with innovative ideas, passion and commitment to solve social and environmental problems from all over Nepal.
Along with the online applications, the team of ChangeFusion had also visited six districts of Nepal (Kavre, Dang, Bara, Bhojpur, Sunsari and Morang) and received 70 applications in all.
“The fellowship program started in 2008 and this is the second batch of fellows. From the 70 applicants, 25 were shortlisted. They attended a three-day capacity building workshop.
The candidates were assessed by a jury and the mentors throughout the workshop and the fellows were chosen from among those participants,” informed Santoshi Rana, media and communication officer of Change Fusion Nepal.
In a statement, Rana further informed that the project had to be sustainable with social and environmental impact and the participant had to possess the vision, commitment and time to devote to the project.
The workshop took place from April 15 to April 18 at Dhulikhel Village Resort.
“The ideas of the project provided to the fellows included energy conservation, providing medicines to the underprivileged communities, biogas, audio books for the visually impaired, setting up a resource centre for youth mobilization, establishing grinding and saw mill,” said Rana.
The panel of juries included Founding Director of ChangeFusion Thailand Sunit Shrestha, Jose Luis Ruiz De Munain and Queralt Capdevilla of Sport Mundi, Spain, Samar Borges of Shanti International, United Kingdom, ChangeFusion Nepal 2009 fellows Pushpa Basnet, Ranjit Kanswar and Rita Shrestha, Advisor, ChangeFusion Nepal Lindsey Friedman and Amod Rajbhandari of Mercantile Group.
Rana further informed that the fellows will be assessed for a month through intensive monitoring during which they will be visiting each of them individually and assessing their projects.
“Based on our monitoring, the fellows will be supported by ChangeFusion Nepal through the four components of funding, mentorship, knowledge and networking,” she added.
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