“Ever since childhood I wanted to become a doctor. After high school, I joined a bridge course for MBBS. I was hopeful that my dream was turning into reality. While doing the course, someone told me that to appear for the entrance of MBBS I will need a citizenship card. Then I didn’t have my citizenship card because there is no provision in the Nepali law the allows citizenship status to a child through her mother. So I had to drop the idea of pursuing MBBS. By this time I had seen my mother struggle to get me citizenship status. However, it didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon and I didn’t see any point in waiting. Luckily or maybe even ironically, to get enrolled for a law degree didn’t require a citizenship status. So I enrolled in law school. Even though I didn’t get to pursue my dream of becoming a doctor, I want to become a contributing citizen of my country.”

What would you like to change after you finish your degree?

“I would like to change the education system. I think science is not a common subject, neither is maths or even computer. Every people don’t apply these in their daily lives. A poor farmer doesn’t know about a computer. I won’t be applying everything I have learnt in school in real life. The one common thing that binds all of humans in humanity. Often at school we take course like social studies and the like very lightly but there are the subjects that should be taught with great importance. And I would want to change that.”

– Neha Gurung, Godawari, Lalitpur