BENGALURU: On November 30 2012, right after the exodus of the North East people, NEP (North East People and Nepal) India association was formed with seven individuals. The two pronged definition of “NEP” which is an abbreviation for the country Nepal and also an acronym for North East People was established to cater to these communities in particular.
On November 30, 2016, the foundation celebrated their three years of establishment with around 500 members.
On occasion of their third anniversary, the community has decided to provide a filip to Prime Minister Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the city this month. Around 500 Nepalis will clean around 14 major localities in and around Bengaluru.
The drive will start on Sunday morning in Sanjeevani Nagar in Hebbal. Every Sunday starting from this week, the community people will gather and dispose the garbage, weed-out wild plants, ensure a clean locality and display placards on clean environment.
Initiating from the north of the city, they will gradually move towards the south aiming to cover all of Bangalore.
“We have taken this initiative to clean the city to celebrate our third year anniversary. The city is home to around 8 lakh Nepalis and North East people,” said Rahul Rai, founder of NEP India Foundation Karnataka.
It has been twenty years since Rahul has settled in the city. While on a vacation to Goa he had dropped by Bengaluru when he was 19 years old. Fascinated by the greens of the city, he decided to stay back. Taking social work as his stride, he joined many NGOs and associations but did not find it satisfactory. After which, he decided to open his own that catered to all communities without being indifferent to any particular community.
The association has conducted several blood camps, rescued three trafficked women, aided Nepal when earthquake struck the country and has been fighting for child rights.
The association branched out to two sections to address the commonly faced problem of the community.
First, is the medical problem since many from North East and Nepal come to the city to get treated annually, often clueless. Six of the association members have been assigned to help them.
Another, 20 young men and women are designated to help the students from the region who come here for education.
The community also addresses the identity problem they face when they venture to Indian cities. “It is much lesser now but earlier we were constantly called Chinese and outsiders,” said Rahul. “For a lot of reasons the foundation was established. The goal is to unify and sustain harmony among our community and various other communities,” Rahul added.
On December 6, the community is hosting a candle vigil in Townhall along with a dalit community of Bengaluru.
“I recently went to the North East and met all the leaders of the eight state. We have a long term plan to establish our community Bhawan here in the city. By 2020, be it by renting a house or building it on land, we plan to establish the community Bhawan that will benefit a lot of people from the region who come to the city,” said Ramesh Rai, member of the association.