[Part One] Self-Exploration in Nepal
~Sudha Subedi
Nepal
My Project: International Youth Travel + Self Exploration Camp by Youth Legend
International Youth Travel + Self Exploration Camp is designed for young people around the world aged 16–35 who want to deep-dive into themselves and foster self-awareness. It is also aimed for youth who love traveling and meeting people around the world.
My Inspiration:
Many young people in Nepal are leaving the country to seek better job opportunities, better education, and lifestyle. These young people need opportunities, guidance, inspiration, and a platform. With the vision of creating an impact in those young people’s lives, Youth Legend was formed. Though Nepal is a poor country, we are blessed with beautiful places. We have the highest mountains — Mount Everest, the birthplace of Buddha, and many world heritage sites. We have amazing things to offer to the world. Therefore, in International Youth Camp, we have blended Self Exploration with Travel to various parts of Nepal.
International Youth Camp is one of the projects of Youth Legend. We believed that this camp will be a platform for young people outside of Nepal to come to Nepal and create amazing memories. It will be a platform for young people of Nepal to learn from young people outside of Nepal, foster meaningful relationships, and grow. Nepali young people will get an opportunity to get involved with youth around the world. It will create inspiration, connection, and friendship. Overall, it will help with the overall development of Nepal.
“Decide if this is something you really want to do. Make sure you are passionate about it and you are willing to have sleepless nights and stressful days to make this happen. Understand that your passion is what will keep you going during darkest days.” — Sudha Subedi
I have realized the importance of knowing oneself as well as stimulating self-awareness in an individual’s life — and especially for young people. It has created a huge impact on my life and the benefits made me want to help other young people too. Therefore, the camp is designed in a way to know yourself, by having time for self-exploration, healing, gaining inner peace, traveling, and getting ready for new adventures in life.
Biggest Challenge:
There have been several challenges. Many unimaginable challenges came during this journey and we realized we should be mentally ready for all kinds of issues. Just a month after announcing our 1st International Youth Camp, there was an earthquake of 7.8 Richter Scale in Nepal followed by unofficial economic blockades from India which resulted in a scarcity of cooking gas, petrol, diesel. It was a huge challenge when we were just starting out. But I’ve always believed that there are solutions to every problem and that in any situation, we should always look for the solutions.
Besides that, we are still struggling to reach the global market of young people. We never had an investor so we could not spend huge money on marketing and promotion. Because of it, growth has been slower. Despite the challenges, It was our passion and faith which kept us going during difficult days. Our team is pumped up for 2017 as we have a few more amazing projects coming.
My Best Resources:
While launching our program, we did lots of internet research. Google has always helped us to solve many problems. Here is the list of resources that were helpful to us:
1. Quora — This forum gave us answers to many questions
2. Opportunity portals like — youthop.com, heysuccess.com
3. Google Adwords — To get data of people from many countries searching for a program like ours
4. Facebook Groups — For connecting with the right people and getting answered for the queries
5. People in our Network — Word of Mouth has been always helpful to us.
My Advice to Peers:
Decide if this is something you really want to do, make sure you are passionate about it and you are willing to have sleepless nights, stressful days to make this happen. Understand that it’s your passion is which will keep you going during darkest days. Then go for it.
You don’t need to have everything figured out while starting. If you are passionate about it and if you think it can create an impact or solve a problem, just do it.
Don’t be scared of failure and mistakes. These things will help you to grow both personally and professionally.