Looking Back on 4 Years
July 29th, 2020 marks four years since we first started our journey as a non-profit organization. PDRC Nepal was originally founded in 2005 with the intention of helping the youths in Nepal access higher education, in addition to achieving their academic and career goals. The growth of PDRC Nepal’s mission outgrew its capacities then, which yielded the formation of PDRC International. Formally an independent entity, PDRC International was formed with the intention of carrying on PDRC Nepal’s mission in the United States. Over time, the establishment of PDRC International in the US has caused our mission to organically shift from PDRC Nepal’s to one that impacts more than just the youth in Nepal. Upon our arrival in America in 2016, we have since continued to establish our place in the education non-profit sector. Not being constricted to just academic education, we at PDRC International have also taken it upon ourselves to work with disadvantaged immigrants with immigration education. In doing so, we have set us apart from the other non-profits in the education sector. Our undying commitment to bettering the lives of marginalized schoolchildren, in addition to our willingness to adapt our mission in order to optimize the number of people we can help, makes us a unique non-profit.
In the years since our founding in America, we have accomplished many things that have fostered and encouraged our growth as a non-profit organization. We have primarily focused on building connections with organizations and individuals at a local, state/national, and private level. These three pillars of network building lend themselves to creating a well-rounded foundation for us to continue our work on.
At a local level, we have established strong connections with groups such as the Baltimore Association of Nepalese in America (BANA) and Medfield Heights Elementary School. Both of these organizations allowed us to develop strong relationships with members in disadvantaged communities, which we found imperative in our mission to provide the most equitable education for children in low-income communities.
In a broader focus, we have collaborated with groups of like-minded individuals at a state and national level. In the past four years, we have fostered extremely valuable partnerships with groups such as the Global Campaign for Education, the World Bank, the Global Education Network, and the United Nations. We have also maintained strong ties with Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, which has provided us the unique opportunity to lobby in the interest of equitable education. These partnerships have allowed us to grow as a group and have provided us with invaluable opportunities to enact change in the world. Working with other groups of individuals towards a greater goal has only amplified our collective efforts, and has allowed PDRC International to leave a resounding impact.
The last of our three pillars of collaboration is on the private level. We have partnered with numerous influential people so that our actions can be even more resounding and impactful. Such individuals include Bernadette Meehan, the Executive Director of the International Program at the Obama Foundation, Dr. Christopher Queen, faculty at Harvard University. Additionally, we have had long standing relations with Brandeis University, Wake Forest University, Texas A&M University, and Howard County Public School System. At all of these private institutions, we were presented the opportunity to meet one-on-one with faculty there, and namely at Harvard, we were able to hold a lecture for students. These opportunities allowed us to spread our message with a greater number of students than had we worked solitarily. All in all, these private partnerships have allowed us to use a greater platform that has notable influence to spread our service and to share our mission with as many people as possible.
The past four years have not been particularly easy for us, however. Challenges arose from being tasked with building a branch of this non-profit organization, essentially from scratch, in a foreign country far from home. We found our biggest challenges to be administrative and bureaucratic. It was difficult navigating the necessary paperwork in order to become a legitimate and recognized non-profit organization. We also found hardships in finding an adequate office space to call ours. At the end, we worked through it all and are now a recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit and we also have established our roots in Baltimore, MD.
Moving forward, we hope to continue building positive relationships with our existing partners. It is our hope that we can accomplish more in the next four years than we did in the past four. We are confident that on top of our sustained collaborations and hard-work, we can leave a long-lasting impact on children and families all over the world. Thank you to everyone who has followed our journey, and we look forward to serving you in the years ahead.
Cheers,
PDRC International