JHAPA, March 17: Right on the Nepal-India border at the eastern end, there’s a lot of transaction going on in Kakarvitta. People come and people go but they leave behind seeds for social disorder and crime. The people here face the woes of an open border.
Amongst the youth clubs that have been established in Kakarvitta, two such clubs are Readers Jhapa and Knight Chess Club (KCC). While the first recently organized a hallmark event which has already given Kakarvitta and Jhapa the lead, when it comes to decentralizing the literary gathering scene of Nepal, otherwise limited to Kathmandu, the later is known for its continuous works in curbing the social problems of Kakarvitta and its neighboring regions.
Knight Chess Club
Beating the heat of social problems and disorder, Knight Chess Club is an umbrella for the youth of Kakarvitta to better their personal welfare by developing their community. What started 15 years ago as a circle of youth with a passion for playing chess has now evolved into one of the most active youth clubs working for the development of Kakarvitta, its original ground and other towns in Mechinagar, Jhapa.
Photo credit: KCC
Students participating in a program organized by Knight Chess Club and its other partners during the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Kakarvitta.
“After four years of formation, we decided that we should also expand to other sectors, apart from chess,” says Dilip Subedi, the current President of KCC. KCC has two main branches of interest – sports and social activities. Along with taking part in national and international sports activities, from its flagship chess tournaments to football and cricket, when it comes to social activities, the main focus is on health.
“We face a lot of different problems due to the fact that we’re living in an open border area,” shares Govinda Neupane, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the Club. Sex trade, drug abuse and the threat from HIV/AIDS are some of the burning social problems in this area.
“We’ve been working towards the prevention of HIV/AIDS, primarily with various concerned groups such as injecting drug users and labor migrants,” informs Subedi who opines, “The problem faced by youth here is that they haven’t been able to receive the level of education that they should. There isn’t much platform for the youth, either. Most of them are only after entertainment and having fun.”
Tackling this issue, KCC focuses on peer education and conducts awareness programs. Programs include one-on-one outreaches, condom promotion, orientations in schools and amongst mother groups.
“KCC has also established an HIV/AIDS service center which provides HIV tests and free treatment.
“We’re also engaging youth through sports and counseling them through this medium,” adds Subedi. Although the club has done significant works in its working areas, Subedi feels that people still haven’t understood the objectives of KCC thoroughly. This he sees as a main challenge for the club.
While the club has over 300 members, KCC has a mix of youths as well as senior mentors. Sujan Pradhan is one of the youngest members in the executive board for the club this year.
“Young members are important in this club because KCC targets problems of the youth and a youth-to-youth interaction is necessary to best solve these problems,” says Pradhan. For him, the main incentive in joining this club was the fact that it was an apolitical and rising club in the area working for social welfare.
“There’re very few opportunities for youth here, and so most youth go to work abroad and don’t intend to come back,” Pradhan says. This in fact, has been the issue for the whole nation, and Mechinagar is no exception to this issue. “Those who don’t get to work abroad get involved in illegal work,” he adds.
Pradhan believes that the club could be more effective by not only working with issues of drugs and HIV/AIDS but also addressing other issues of the youth that might be directly or indirectly fuelling drug abuse and the contraction of HIV/AIDS.
Readers Jhapa
The hunger for literature and reading brought together readers of Jhapa from various walks of life, and placed them in a beautiful garden in the Water Supply Office at Kakarvitta every Saturday to talk books and beyond. The group is the result of the common passion for reading and discourse between Ujjwal Prasai and Sailesh Dahal as well as the other 33 members, collectively known as Readers Jhapa.
Photo Credit: Krishna Sinjali
Local students observing the photography exhibition, a part of the Arts and Literature Festival 2069 in Kakarvitta, organized by Readers Jhapa.
“Ujjwal and I used to always share with each other what we’ve read and we then decided that we wanted to extend this sharing to others as well,” says Sailesh who is one of the executive members of the group.
“The youth here don’t have faith in education as they go for easy money. There’re also many ways that the youth can get their hands on easy money. Money is given a lot of priority but we want to establish the notion that education and reading are also very important,” says Dahal.
Apart from the weekly meetings and a few small-scale interaction programs around literature and journalism, Readers Jhapa has recently conducted a noteworthy national level Arts and Literature Festival 2069 which is deemed to be the first of its kind outside of the nation’s capital. With dialogues and interactions on a variety of literary, cultural and sociopolitical issues, the three-day festival was able to bridge the gap between Kathmandu-based writers and writers from other corners of the country.
“Through this festival, we wanted to give Kakarvitta a new identity, one that is related to the arts and literature,” Ujjwal Prasai, President of Readers Jhapa, said.
With a vision to promote continuous reading and to develop reading culture in the area, the club plans to organize a mega event every two years while plans to establish a proper library in the community are also in the pipeline.
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