Hanisha Sharma-Luital, a former refugee from Bhutan, has become the youngest person at the age 19 to be honored with the prestigious ‘Ambassador Award at the Victoria’s Multicultural Awards for Excellence 2015’ amidst a special ceremony held in Melbourne on December 3, 2015.

Luital was awarded for committing her time to numerous multicultural projects since her arrival in Australia in 2003 from Bhutan. She also served as a member of the Multi-Faith Multicultural Youth Network (MMYN) run by the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship.

She is the youngest and first Bhutanese-Australian lifeguard, and also the youngest representative to the Youth Parliament in Victoria for 2012.

According to our Melbourne correspondent, Linda Dessau AM, the Governor of Victoria, presented various awards to 75 recipients for their outstanding contributions to multicultural communities belonging to different 23 cultural backgrounds.

The Victoria government has been recognizing persons with outstanding and exemplary leadership and contributions in the community with this award annually for the last 14 years.

Her profile:
Arrived in 2003 at the age of seven from Bhutan, Luital has started volunteering in cultural programs organised by various ethnic communities.

While she was a student majoring in International Relations from the Latrobe University and also working at the Coburg Leisure Centre, Luital became the youngest and first Bhutanese refugee lifeguard at 17 followed by earning another cap as a swimming instructor when she turned 19.

Having served as the first female Australian Football League (AFL) multicultural community ambassador from the Bhutanese Community, Luital now proudly heads the Help-Himalayan Youth Foundation, a not-for-profit community organisation run jointly by Bhutanese, Karen and Nepalese youths.

When the Australian Government celebrated 2015 Refugee Week exclusively dedicating to the successful resettlement of 100,000 Bhutanese refugees earlier in June, Luital also accepted a special invitation of Peter Dutton, Minister for Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), and entertained everyone with a typical Bhutanese dance in Parliament House Canberra.

As the youngest member, she represented YMCA to the Youth Parliament in Victoria in 2012. She has also served in the Office of the Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship (OMAC) through MMYN for two years. Further, as a dedicated young volunteer, she also raised a significant amount of donations for Oak Tree Foundation, and earthquake victims in Nepal.

Luital’s social involvement has not only helped her achieved various platforms, but also inspired her sister, Sonia, to render her volunteerism to Nepal as she is presently planning a trip to Kathmandu, where she would work as a volunteer to support earthquake victims from the Dalit communities through INHURED International.

Luital has also took part in dozens of multicultural festivals organized by various ethnic communities, numerous social initiatives and fundraising events, and UNHCR-Annual Tripartite Consultation on Resettlement that was held in 2012 in Melbourne.

Various media outlets including the Border Mail, SBS Nepali Radio Sydney and Radio Pahican among others have already featured Luital’s works.

The grand finale of ‘Barsha Best Performer 2015’ is set for December 26, 2015 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The first audition round of the singing show, ‘Bersha Best Performer’, started from July, 2015 with 40 aspiring resettled Bhutanese singers from different states of America. According to organizer, the program’s Live streaming will be broadcasted through ‘youtube’ and Rerun through White Himal Television.

The top ten finalist of Barsha Best Performer have completed their last studio performance and have already been assessed by the judges. Those ten contestant are Naina Monger, Deoka Bhandari, Gopal Mongar, Shiva Rai, Damu Tiwari, Ramesh Kadel, Sahara Rai, Jeetendra Giri, Santa Kafley, and Baba Khaling. Their scores have not been disclosed yet. The voting lines to vote for all ten contestants are open till December 3, 2015, Thursday 9 PM EST. The evaluator board includes famous Nepali singer Promod Kharel from Kathmandu, Nepal, Bhutanese singers Balaram Gurung from Pittsburgh, PA and Damber Kapaung from Fargo, ND.

Barsha Best Performer is a Nepali signing series organized by Sakcham Group, an artists’ group based in Pittsburgh run and managed by resettled Bhutanese youths and supported by Barsha Jewelers in association with other business entities. According to organizer, the show is a talent contest to decide the best new singer among the resettled Bhutanese youngsters based on viewer voting and participation. It is independently produced and is not a licensed adaptation.

There are so many talented artists born and grown in the refugee camps in Nepal. Due to the lack of resources, exposure and opportunities they remained always under the shadow. Very few could exhibit their talents on their own and became successful and even have produced music albums in the past.
One of the main sponsors of this event Bhanu Phuyel, who runs Barsha Jewelers in Pittsburgh, says, ‘This is an approach to respect and promote the talents of our young brothers and sisters. Small opportunity sometimes can change the life of an individual so differently. All the contestants who participated in this event have learnt a lot and are determined to excel their skills in better ways. I am glad to be a part in promoting the hidden, otherwise, totally unnoticed talents of our younger generations.’

The top four contestants of the season will be awarded with a gift and token of love, along with the opportunity to sing two songs that will be featured in a compilation album. The winner of the season will get an opportunity to get a week long trip to Caribbean Cruise for free for 2, the organizer has stated.

Bhutanese community members in New Hampshire(NH) observed the third day of ‘Tihar’ festival by worshiping cows amidst a function at Bartlett Farm Dairy, in Concord on Wednesday the November 11, 2015.

The Tihar that is celebrated for five days includes four days showing reverence towards animals like Crows, Dogs, Cows and Oxen who Hindus consider having very meaningful relationship with humans. On the fifth day- the festival ends with brothers receiving Teeka from their sisters.

Cows are considered holy or motherly animal. Hindus admire cow for her kindness and non-violent nature, which is also regarded as the basis of main teachings of Hinduism. Hindu Upanishads or Vedantas have very significantly compared cow with the mother earth. The third day of the Tihar has bigger meaning for the mankind. People feed cows with delicious foods, offer garlands and adorn with colorful dyes. This is considered showing gratitude for serving people of all walks of life with milk as an elixir.

The celebration in Concord was organized by Maintaining Independence Adult Day Services Inc. According to the organizer, more than 50 resettled Bhutanese adults attended and marked the festival.

Bhakti Maya Nepal, who is residing in Manchester since the last three years, appreciated United States being such a beautiful flower garden where  each culture and religion has equal respect. “I had never imagined such opportunities in the country like USA, while we were in the refugee camps in Nepal, that we are realistically doing today. I knew today that the United States is great for many reasons”, Bhakti Maya said. She became so overwhelmed and further said that, “I feel grateful to be the part of the celebration with all my fellow friends and relatives similar to what we used to do while back in our villages in Bhutan. I feel like I am in Bhutan.”

 Likewise, another celebrant Puspa Lal Adhikari recalled the way they used celebrate ‘Cow Tihar’ in Bhutan with lots of merrymaking in the evening by dancing in groups, visiting neighbors sharing and wishing the blessings from goddess Laxmi- the Goddess of the wealth.

Those showing deep reverence towards motherly animal Cows  sip a drop or two of the cow’s urine as a part of belief in the purification process. The sacred Upanishads have defined cow’s urine being therapeutic in nature with divine healing properties.

   …’ the children-
the global citizens
scratch the earth and sketch
the crown of the King
with fading color…’  

reads one of the stanzas of the poem ‘Children in the Camp’ in – ‘The Pathetic Journey’.

‘The day my family landed in the bank of river Kankai in Jhapa, Nepal my mind remained hunting answers to questions like- why king did not love his citizens? Why king could not be the guardian of all? Why the king pick only those people of his type? What crime I happened to commit as a child so that I became stateless? It is the outcome of my past 25 years. The Pathetic journey is the collections of those answers in the form of poetry works’, says Narad Pokhrel, the author of the book.

Objectively analyzing the poems during the book releasing program organized in Pittsburgh, PA on November 8, 2015 by Literarture Council of Bhutan (LCOB), former  Prof. Terry Lee Kuhn from Kent,Ohio said, ‘Narad’s poetry describes the Lhotshampa people from southern Bhutan whose homes, farms, animals, and crops were stolen by a mercenary government that wanted it all for itself.  That Royal Government of Bhutan was able to evict many of its Lhotshampa people, but it cannot squelch the art, intellectual life, and feelings of the victims.’

One of the editors of the book, Dr. Taralal Shrestha from Kirtipur, Kathmandu Nepal has seen this book as; ‘The narration of the tragic collapse of a long lost family, their vicious past-the forced parasitic living- echo as historical statements that whisper to apprise the homeless generation through the retrospection and reconstruction of their (hi)story.’

‘This collection, consisting of enthralling stories, of the victims of the genuine cause, in soft sentiments will be a compelling read for those who wish to know about the lives lived by the exiled Bhutanese’, says Rup Pokharel, another editor of this book from Pittsburgh.

Presenting the commentary on the poems in the book Shivalal Dahal, one of the noted critics amidst Bhutanese diaspora remarked Narad’s poetry work as- ‘the reflection of one historical phase in the history of exiled Bhutanese. Fundamentally, poems are melancholic-originating from forced exile, broken love, deprivation and poverty. The journey described here is not only the geographical but metaphysical and the whirling move of traumatized minds too. Reading his poems, one will be deeply moved by his humanism.’

According to the Chairman of Literature Council of Bhutan (LCOB), Bhakta Ghimire, the book is the mirror displaying the other side of the untold tale of tactical drama of the elites over run-of-the-mill. The Pathetic Journey has also encouraged patience to progress and hopes to living. It is as reminiscence for those born and raised in Bhutan, bridge for those born and brought-up in the refugee camps, connecting dots to revealing truth for the children born in the countries of resettlement and something to ponder upon for the general readers- is the prime essence of this book.

The 276 paged volume is published by Discourse Publication, Kathmandu and printed in Noida, India is available in the market for the readers. The copies are available in Hard bound and Paperback.

A man identified as Bibhu Dhakal died in a hospital in Columbus, where he was taken at critical condition, Saturday, after being pulled out of a pond near Shanley. He was taken out of the pond where his car plunged after hitting the curb and breaking the fence surrounding the pond.

According to a facebook post by Vishal . Sharma, the funeral date is scheduled for November 10 at 4:30pm.

The Dhakal family was resettled in Columbus from Goldhap refugee camp. The cause of the accident is not yet known.

Bhutanese Community in Syracuse (BCS) Inc., has elected by a secret ballot an eight membered board of directors on Sunday, November 1, 2015.

The election was conducted at the office of Catholic Charities, the local resettlement agency at 527 North Salina Street. At the beginning of voting, Hari Bangaley Adhikari, chief of the election commission briefly explained the rules of the election and the method of casting votes to the candidates contesting in different positions. The election began at 1pm and continued until 7pm.

The new team of BCS has been formed under the chairmanship of Kazi Gautam. Others elected board of directors are Pavitra Sapkota (Vice Chair), Sajan Nepal (Treasurer), Parshu Dhimal (Director-Social Service and Elders), Ajaya Sapkota (Director-Religion and Culture), Dadhi Dahal (Director-Education), Yuba Bhattarai (Director-Games and Sports) and Kiran Gautam (Director-Women and Children).

The outgoing president of BCS, Jai Subedi congratulated the new team and expressed his desire to extend them his helping hands as and when needed.

“I will always be there to support you and I wish you the best of luck for your commitment towards the community”, said Subedi. He added that  BCS has expected a lot from the new board of directors.

Hari Bangaley Adhikari also congratulated the newly elected chairman and other board of directors through an email.

“On behalf of the General Assembly of the Bhutanese Community of Syracuse, I extend heartiest congratulation to you on becoming the chairperson of BCS. Other contestants that withdrew their names as you filed the nomination is an example of how much support you earned. This is a showcase of the trust of the people on you and a revelation of the good work you have done over the years for the community”, read Bangaley’s email.

On behalf of new board of directors, Kazi Gautam, a new chairman of BCS  thanked everyone for their support and trust on them, and expressed the new board’s desire to work continuously for the betterment of the community members.

“I do not have enough words to thank everyone for your love and support showered to our team. We do not have any agenda or anything at this point. However, on behalf of our team, I would like to assure you that we will work selflessly to help our community folks at need, and work towards preservation of our identity ”, said Gautam.

The Board of Directors will resume the office from November 2. Immediately, the board is expected to nominate a board secretary and a team of executives.