About three years ago, I declined job offers from reputed companies in Japan and made a decision to come back to Nepal. My parents weren't happy about it. The same way they weren't happy earlier when I made a decision to pursue my academic journey in social science and decline opportunities to go to med school in Nepal and become a doctor.
I studied international relations and peace studies from a university in Japan and to this date I considered that as the best decision that I've done to myself because it became an opportunity for me to discover my identity understand and express in many ways that best decision offered me an opportunities to be in a university and course that was so multiddisciplinary and interdisciplinary that my way of looking into global issue changed drastically. ically. Likewise, that decision also offered me an opportunity to live in a country like Japan, the country that opened me with this culture, language, people, and as well as a lot of different hardship that came along while trying to become an independent, financially independent foreign student in a non-English-speaking country.
That decision also allowed me to live in a city called Beu. It's a small city in Japan which is a very famous tourist destinations even amongst the Japanese people to come and celebrate its unique festivals, enjoy its seafood, one of the best one in the world and as well as um to be part of its beautiful hotring that spread all across the city. And in that city, I found myself building an identity that was an intersection of Japan and Nepal.
While I would be found brunching in sushi and ramen restaurant nearby my apartment quite frequently, I would also be found running a cloud kitchen and selling Nepali cuisine like samosa and momo for my Southeast Asian friends. While I would be found um playing samisin, a Japanese instrument um that is quite somehow similar to sitar, I would also be found teaching kumari dance to my friends. So in all these different experiences I was finding myself I was building and understanding my identity and at the same time I was also understanding about my culture my country better and more before believe it when I say this you learn more about yourself when you're in someone else community and that applied massively to me I was learning about my country I was getting more curious curious about my culture than before.
So after my graduation from the university and also being selected as one of the top four student from the cohort for a very prestigious Andomo Momafuku award the award that would uh that was given to the student who exhibited leadership and academic excellence throughout the student life and that together opened a lot of avenues for me to pursue my career in Japan. I made another decision to come back to Nepal. That drive brought me back to Nepal.
But it would soon clash with the very poor job market here in Nepal. I understood at that moment that I did not have resources. I did not have network here to find and land a really good job in Nepal.
So that was a moment when um I realized that um having to spend four years in Japan, I was also losing a lot of things here in Nepal. One mostly becoming my network with the right people and at the right places. So when I applied to job opportunities here, the only job that got back to me was an internship position.
And it was it was disappointing in many ways because I had a really good job offers in Japan but still I started with that internship position but within the three years time right here today now I am in a manager position in a multinational company in Nepal. But landing this job in a multinational company today is not just one experience or one role that led to another. I had several experience throughout the process.
I have uh experience working in working with the government entities. I have experience working at for the priv nonprofit organization and as well as I have experience working for the private sector now. So this is something that has been very interesting to me and has shaped me of who I am today.
The multis sector perspective and this is something that I really encourage to the youth in Nepal. When you have a multis sector experiences, when you have multis sector perspective, you bring in a lot of more ideas at the table. My first role I focused on the roles that provided me opportunity to do more research.
So that became a stepping stone for understanding about different context and different policies in Nepal. I worked uh in the policies for the women enterprise uh um policy supporting women enterprises in Nepal. Policy supporting uh women political leadership in Nepal and I also had an opportunity to work with the ministry of communication information and technology for the research support and also supporting member of parliament in their bills and research.
While I was focused on all these research um roles, something that really struck me was like the finding of the research was very limited and it was not accessible for all the youth and young crowds. So I stepped into another sector which was in communications. So making all these research and his finding into more digestible and consumable form for the youth through something that we all enjoy going through like a videos and reals format.
So I worked in the digital um online civic engagement platform for over a year. So over the all this period of time and then I landed my current role as CSR and stakeholder deputy manager at Coca-Cola beverages Nepal. Here I look after different kind of CSR activities that the business does and at the same time I get to add another layer to my multis sector experience that is a business aspect and that's something that I had not imagined would be a big assets to um you know developing myself and my understanding of the context of development in Nepal.
So through my role today I have become a part of a business that uh strive to integrates the community and sustainable practices while it exist and function in Nepal. So I get to engage with communities that live around the business around the plant and I get to engage and find a way to empower them in many ways. I also get to uh I also get opportunity to engage in different kind of projects in waste management and water recharge that the company does for the communities around and uh mostly what I see it is not just a GDP growth that you see when the companies like those function in Nepal.
So it has also opened my eyes in how while functioning in Nepal you also witness how these companies would uh empower the life of individuals who are directly or indirectly attached to it and also a lot of other business like small enterprise business that are attached to this business. So it somehow gives me a holistic approach of um how everything functions in Nepal. And I'm glad that I took this opportunity to stay from development sectors to the private sector which obviously was a route that I did not imagine when the first time I came back to Nepal.
So one thing that I want to really highlight that's something that was very important for me throughout all this period of time with different sectors was a communication skills. Whether you are in a different context, whether you are in a private company, whether you are working for some social cause, when you're working for any um development sectors, whichever sector it is, what really strikes the most for us is to have a really good communication skill. Now, when I speak of communication skill, it is two two-way road.
You're not just expressing yourself, you're also trying to understand what others have to say about it. So it's more like what you are saying should be relatable and understandable for the people. Right now in the manufacturing industry which is a men's world frankly and I find myself as the only women in the room making decisions.
I am the only um regional manager position for the bottleless Nepal t limited where I find myself really hard time expressing myself but at over the period of time I've understood that the different kind of experience that I've collected has also allowed me to express about my unique ideas differently and um in many ways I also believe that this has also stand as an opportunities for companies to have a women perspective in all the decisions that they make. So, it's a long road ahead. I'm pretty sure about it.
So, I do not know what unfolds in another year and I do not know um what kind of opportunities will come along. But I'm pretty sure that if I continue to work towards with open heart and open mind, there surely is some bright things coming ahead and I will be able to continue to um fulfill my dream of coming back to Nepal. Thank you so much.
