Newswise — When a pair of massive earthquakes devastated a vast portion of his native Nepal this spring, Amrit Kandel didn’t think the heartbreak could get any greater.
Then, on May 12, the same day as the second major temblor struck, a helicopter, carrying six U.S. Marines and two Nepalese soldiers on a humanitarian mission bringing supplies to villages laying in ruins, crashed near Charikot, one of the areas hardest hit by the earthquakes. The pilot of the helicopter was 29-year-old Marine Capt. Dustin Lukasiewicz, a Nebraska native.
Kandel — born in Nepal but raised in Omaha and is a member of the Nebraska Nepalese Society — attended Lukasiewicz’s June 6 funeral in St. Paul, Neb.
“It was truly inspiring,” said Kandel, a 2013 Creighton University graduate. “Everyone said those Marines died doing what they loved. They were helping people. They were helping the people of Nepal get back on their feet after such a huge tragedy. What was Nepal to them but a strange country? But they still went to help.”
Leaving the funeral, Kandel was struck by an idea. He had been, for a month and a half since the first quake on April 25, raising funds and meeting with Nebraska’s political leadership to discuss means for more people to reach out to Nepal. But now, he felt a call to take his fundraising in a new direction.
“All the news was focused on how bad everything was in Nepal,” he said. “Death and destruction was everywhere. But here was this guy from Nebraska, dying in Nepal on a mission of mercy and I thought, ‘Can there be a way to honor that sacrifice, too, and do something worthwhile for Nepal?’”
Later in June, Kandel and Creighton senior marketing major Biraj Pokharel, also a native of the mountainous south-central Asian nation, went on their own humanitarian trip to the country of their birth. From village to village, they encountered much the same devastation.
For many villagers who were living in tents on less than $2 per day, the chief concern was not so much for housing or work or even running water.
“They said to us, ‘If you want to do something, do something for our children,’” Kandel said. “‘Rebuild our schools. Give our children a chance for the future.’”
In Pauauti-3, a hamlet in the Kavreplanchock District, Bal Uddhar Secondary School is the only source of public education for miles around, attracting between 300 and 400 students from the village and the surrounding countryside.
The school was heavily damaged in the earthquakes and deemed unusable. Students are currently attending classes and studying in makeshift classrooms in tents, on the patios of homes or in rented rooms. Estimates are that, without a new school building, the students’ school careers could be interrupted for as long as five to seven years.
“The school became what’s called a ‘red-sticker school,’” said Pokharel, who moved to Omaha from Nepal at 13. “There was a large red sticker on it that let people know that just the slightest misstep inside and the whole building would come tumbling down. And yet, children kept showing up for school and the people in the village kept finding ways to make sure school could continue. But that can’t go on forever. Winter and the monsoon season come and five years is just too long to wait to make sure these children are getting an education.”
After visiting Pauauti-3, Kandel and Pokharel came away with an answer to Kandel’s question about both rebuilding and honoring the sacrifice of the Marines and the Nepalese soldiers.
“We could rebuild this school in their memory,” Kandel said. “I think we tend to think of the military in terms of war, but here they were trying to help. Rebuilding this school could be a testament to the bravery of these Marines and the mission they were on to bring peace and aid.”
Kandel and Pokharel secured the permission of the local school leadership. The school officer in the Kavreplanchock District sent a letter to Kandel saying work could begin immediately.
Returning to the U.S. in July, Kandel reached out to the families of the six fallen Marines. All of them, he said, expressed overwhelming interest in and support of going through with the project. Dustin Lukasiewicz’s widow, Ashley, sent Kandel an email saying that her husband was a voracious reader and the family would be honored to see his name go over a library or a computer lab at the school. The mother of Sgt. Ward M. Johnson IV, from Florida, sent an email saying her son would be only too proud to see kids learning in a school commemorating his life and his last mission.
“A mother of one of the Marines said that, had her son not died, this would have been a project he’d have dropped everything to help with,” Pokharel said. “That was a moving statement. It’s been very inspirational to hear their stories. It’s why we want to dedicate this school to them.”
Kandel has set a goal of $75,000 for fundraising, but hopes gifts helping the project might reach $100,000 to supply the school with the latest in technology and library resources. He is raising funds through Education for Purpose, a nonprofit organization Kandel launched in 2014 to address disparities in education both near and far. The Bal Uddhar reconstruction, he said, fit right into the organization’s mission.
“The way the families have reached out has already been very encouraging,” he said. “We also think it’s going to be a great way for Creighton alumni to give back. We’re hoping that the news can get out as far as possible, so that people from all over, can make this an enduring legacy of the Marines who died there and give some hope to the people of Nepal and this village.”
To learn more about the Bal Uddhar School reconstruction project and to donate, visit the project's Indiegogo site. Those wishing to mail a donation can also send checks to Education for Purpose, PO Box 24144, Omaha, NE 68124.
RSS