The Bhutanese Overseas Organization of Cleveland of Ohio, United States organized the Namaste America 2 with Nepalese actress Rekha Thapa, Sunday.

Actress Thapa presented her banner super hit movie ‘Rawhan’. After the show, Thapa expressed pleasure to be a part of the program. She also wished to continues such kind of typical story all over the world.

The Namaste America 2 Director  Himgyap Tashi featured the document ‘Mansari’ directing the life style of Nepali community.

The program also featured community artists like Arjun Rasily, Kanchi Maya Subba and Amber Subba among others.

The organizer also honored actress Thapa and dance Namaste America 2 Direcator Tashi at the program moderated by Narayan Pradhan.

A night fire has gutted at least seven huts this night in Sanischare camp.

Camp-based Armed Police Force (APF) and refugees destroyed more than a dozen of huts while bringing the mishap under control.

The fire that was first noticed at 9:15 p.m. from Sector L/1 Hut No 44 owned Purna Bahadru Subba was brought under control in less than an hour, reports Hem Giri from Sanischare.

A special squad of Nepal Police successfully freed one exiled Bhutanese from Sarlahi district of Nepal where Nepalese nationals made him a hostage for five days.

Police have identified the Sanischare-based youth as Radha Krishna Neopane, an eleventh grade student from Nepal Darsan Higher Secondary School at Urlabari.

Police raided a house owned by Rajdev Chaudhary at Barathwa of Sarlahi and rescued the youth, arresting accused abductors Birendra Kumar Yadav, Suresh Chaudhary and Rajdev Chaudhary.

Yadav, who presented himself as a husband of Neopane’s resettled sister Sabi, was threating the victim’s family after he knew that his alleged wife was resettled in America some five months before.

Yadav also reportedly claimed that he had developed an affair with Sabi while he was working as a supervisor in one of construction sites in Sanischare, and later adopted her as his second wife.

However, the Nepaopane family refuted such accusations saying Sabi didn’t have any kind of relationship with Yadav.

The victim also informed BNS over telephone that abductors tied has limbs for over 24 hours, even not allowing to attend the nature’s call. “They provided me plastic bags for passing stool and urine, instead,” Radha Krishna said.

While, one of his relative said Yadav had been treating and demanding a huge money since longtime. It is learnt that he was even making frequent calls to Sabi, whom BNS couldn’t reach for her comments.

A young man identified as Purna Gurung stabbed himself to near-death unconsciousness before dawn break on Saturday, Feb 23. He was rushed to the hospital by police called by the neighbor after his wife informed of his long silence in the bathroom, the door locked from inside.

The suicide of this man took place on early hours of the same day when some 45 Bhutanese community members plan to attend a phone conference to discuss the very issue of burgeoning suicide rates among Bhutanese across US. When the ORR officials in Washington updated the suicide number of 20, they were not expecting this suicide to add to the list.

Purna’s wife informed the neighbors about his long silence in the bathroom, with occasional thuds. She revealed to the immediate neighbors that she noticed some blood spilling from beneath the door, which prompted the neighbors to call police, before going to her help.

‘There has not been any case of family dispute or tension between husband and wife as per we know’, told one neighbor. ‘However, Purna had been ousted from his jobs and was not working’.

It was almost three months that they could not pay the house rent and were sued by the leasing company. A church affiliate, Purna was helped by the Church pay the rent of one month, according to another neighbor.

The deceased is suspected to have started drinking and gambling in a local bar, after he left the job.

The dead body is kept for postmortem while his widow wife is taken care of by his brothers living in another apartment in Atlanta.

Purna is survived by his wife and one year old daughter. He came from Timai camp.

The recent fire victims of Beldangi-I camp received cash supports from the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands through Bhutan Media Society (BMS), Sunday.

BMS in coordination with the Camp Management Committee distributed Rs 11,8527 to the fire victims proving each 65 burnt huts with Rs 1800 each, the Society stated in a press statement issued on Monday.

Of the total fund received, American Vivekananda Academy based in Manchester city of New Hampshire, U.S. donated Rs 59,489. Similarly, the Society received Rs 28,321 from the Bhutanese Welfare Association in UK and Rs 30,717 from the Bhutanese Community in the Netherlands and its Dutch friends.

Camp Secretary of Beldangi camp, Sanchahang Subba, distributed cash donations to individual household amidst a program organized by the Society in Beldangi-I yesterday.

“The camp management committee is highly impressed with the mission of the Bhutan Media Society in supporting fellow-countrymen in needs,” the Secretary Subba said while addressing the gathering.

“We highly value generosity of resettled Bhutanese and their friends who have extending their helping hands in order to sympathize fire victims of our camps,” he added.

Dozens of representatives from various aid agencies, Youth Friendly Center, Armed Police Force, and camp-based organizations also attending the relief distribution.

The Society further said Ram Karki from the Netherlands, Prem Giri from the United Kingdom and Bhim Basnet on behalf of American Vivekananda Academy volunteered to mobilize the funds to fire victims through BMS.

Pandit Ramadheen Ramsamooj has set up American Vivekananda Academy where most of the students at present are refugees from Bhutan.

This school, apart from teaching English, mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, US history and constitution, world geography, world history, English literature, economics, principles of business, it also has in its curriculum Sanskrit, Indian philosophy, Yoga, Ayurveda, Indian Music, Indian and Bhutanese History.

Pandit Ramsamooj is a visionary and original thinker who has dedicated his life to developing creative learning methods and building institutions that provide holistic education that combines academic excellence and moral awareness in its students.

This  has culminated in a teaching methodology called Super Accelerated Learning Theory  (S.A.L.T.) that has shown a quantum leap in the quality and quantity of learning in students from diverse backgrounds. His goal is to put his experience and the SALT methodology to use on a national and international scale.

Baltimore Clayworks is prepared to host Global Perspectives, a curatorial thesis exhibition beginning  March 2 through April 13 by Jaimianne Amicucci, an MFA graduate student of the Curatorial Practice Program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

It will showcase artwork and narratives of ceramic artisans from Bhutan, Nepal, Tanzania and Ethiopia. Artwork made by local teenage refugees from these countries will also be displayed.

Founded in 1980, Baltimore Clayworks is a not-for-profit ceramic art center located in the Mt Washington neighborhood of northwest Baltimore which offers classes, exhibitions, artist’s spaces and programs throughout the community.

Amicucci, who holds a BFA in Ceramics from Finlandia University, volunteered at Baltimore Community College’s Refugee Youth Project and developed an interest in the diverse cultural backgrounds of the teens she met there. With her love of ceramics, she embarked on a journey to explore and research traditional pottery making in the native countries of the refugees she met. She traveled to the Kingdom of Bhutan and Nepal in South Asia, as well as Ethiopia and Tanzania in Africa to study the methods and pattern making of local artisans.

With the help of Baltimore Clayworks’ Community Arts Program, Amicucci shared the pottery making traditions of these countries with the teens of the Refugee Youth Project. After showing photographs from her travels and explaining how a group of artisans would share several roles in order to produce hundreds of pots and vessels to sell to locals and tourists – Amicucci and teachers from the Clayworks’ Community Arts Program asked the youth to create functional ware with the same mentality. As well as working on individual projects, the children worked as a group – implementing the communal fundamentals that they had learned about from Amicucci. Teens were shown pottery making techniques and encouraged to use patterns and designs to explore their identity.

 Global Perspectives will showcase artwork and narratives of ceramic artisans from these countries which will be accompanied by ceramic work created by teens of RYP. This exhibition will create an artistic bridge between the refugee communities in Baltimore and the ceramic artwork of their homelands that they left behind when coming to the United States.  Global Perspectives will also provide the general public the opportunity to learn about and enjoy the rich cultural and authentic traditions of ceramic pottery from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Photographs of craftspeople taken by Jaimianne Amicucci during her research as well as objects and narratives – translated into several languages – will be displayed throughout the exhibition and galleries.

As part of the programming, Global Perspectives will include a curator’s talk and panel discussion.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday, March 2, from 6 to 8PM for all interested to attend the exhibition.

Baltimore City Community College’s Refugee Youth Project is committed to assisting newly arrived refugee youth by providing extra academic, social and emotional support through mentoring and after-school programs.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) moderated a conference call, Saturday, at 3pm EST (USA) with the concerned stakeholders and Bhutanese community representatives resettled across the United States of America.

By the conference call, it is primarily aimed at listening to the community members’ comments and suggestions on the issue of increasing suicidal cases among the Bhutanese who are resettled in the US.

The conference was organized to four domains of discussion- culture and religion, gender difference, impact of community leaders, social media as way to communicate about suicide. The discussion focused on the root causes and the role played or could be played by community workers and volunteers to prevent the suicides.

Most of the participants revolved their suggestions and comments around the need to capacity building of community workers by means of training on mental health, identifying the vulnerable individuals, resource mobilization for the community organizations to work towards prevention and need for effective communication with the social workers and immediate family members or relatives.

Managing emotional stress is what clearly seems to be lacking among the Bhutanese after resettlement, identified one participant.

“The background of living in a refugee camp for long time and the society being male dominated has led to many females come to the US with the same vulnerable position,” said a female participant.

“The stereotype against female has still led to domestic violence, causing suicide of females more than man,” she added.

Diagnosis of the root causes of suicidal thoughts among Bhutanese in US is important step towards awareness to prevent the suicides, said Yam Kharel. “So it is necessary to develop those materials in print and audio-visual that can be used to inform people during orientations in US and host country.”

The unnatural increase of suicides among the Bhutanese people in the US has drawn sufficient attention of all concerned agencies, including ORR.

An investigative report on the study of suicide cases was published on October 2012, involving community workers and medical professionals by Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The document was widely circulated among the community volunteers and resettlement agencies. Four fresh suicides are committed after the report was published taking the number to 20.

The conference call lasted for an hour and half. The Director of ORR who identified some key points raised during conference to be used for recommendations made the concluding remarks.