This is a 2030 visioning blog written by young people to share their vision of the future. With +700million youth in Asia-Pacific, our future is in their hands!

Aug 7, 2016

Poverty is History in Nepal!

by Binita Karki

Binita, in her early years, as a reporter and filmmaker

“Poverty was so much close to me that I hated it. With that on my mind, I had only one goal in life — to make poverty history,” says Binta Karki when reflecting on her life in rural Nepal.

Binita Karki grew up in a remote Nepali village during the country’s development period. Having witnessed poverty up close, on a daily basis, her upbringing shaped her life. In the early 2000’s, Nepal had a booming extractive sector and a robust agricultural sector but many of the people in Banita’s community, including her own family, still lived in extreme poverty due to poor use of government assests and alleged corruption.

Binta reflects, “Growing up, I didn’t understand how a society, like Nepal, with 65% of the population engaged in agriculture still had 35% of the population suffering from food scarcity. I knew early on that I had to do something.”

Thanks, in part, to Binita’s efforts to ensure free and equitable access to vocational training, particularly for women, poverty has fallen significantly in Nepal.

Starting in her own village, Binita worked with community based women’s organizations to identify locally made products. Partnering with a variety of local artisans, Binita advised and guided them to select all natural materials. As her programme began to grow, she teamed up with social entrepreneurs to help train villagers to sell their goods on regional, national and global markets.

Binita teams up with young social entrepreneurs to eliminate poverty

Within a few short years all of the products produced within Binita’s community were organic. Due to timing and high demand, the organic products were not only successful within Nepal, but did very well on the international market as well.

“Thanks to Binita and her team, we have skills, we no longer have to suffer from domestic violence and our children would get quality education. We have lifted ourselves out of poverty,” says Karma, an artisan from Binita’s home town.

Within four years of starting the project, Binita’s community saw unemployment rate drop to under 5% and the GDP within the province was actually growing at a healthy rate of 6%.

“As a young adult, I dreamt of creating a society without poverty. Of a Nepal free from the grips of despair. Before this project, many people never would have imagined we could eliminate poverty, provide gainful employment and increase GDP using our own skills and products. But we did it. We should the world the power of youth innovation,” exclaimed Binita.

After 15 years, Binita still sees herself as a social activist, but she is so much more than that. She has been the breath of life for rural Nepal. She has been credited for strengthening vocational skills training throughout the country and instrumental in the fight to eliminate poverty.

Binita says, “15 years ago, my FUTURE PERFECT was to see a world without poverty. 2030 is here and poverty in Nepal is history. We did it!”

(There are more than 700 million young people in Asia and the Pacific. Every single young person has a dream and a vision for 2030. What’s yours? Send us a message with your future perfect!)