The Bhutanese Australian Association of South Australia (BAASA) observed the fourth anniversary by electing a new executive on Feb. 8th at St. John Church, Salisbury.
The BAASA’s new board with some of the outgoing executives and election commissioners after the election (Picture courtesy: BAASA)
Newly elected chairperson, Kamal Dahal, expressed his commitment to serve the community at his best capacity and extended heartfelt gratitude to all the Bhutanese in ushering BAASA and introducing Bhutanese to Australian vast multicultural community and further anticipated good support and solidarity from entire Bhutanese community in SA and around the globe.
He also thanked the BAASA outgoing executive committee for completing their successful two years term, and taking BAASA and South Australian Bhutanese Community to a greater height. All the elected board members were allowed to express their commitment of community service, which each one of them accepted while expecting support and co-operation from all sections of the community.
Meanwhile, Lal Bahadur Rai has been elected as vice-chair of the organization. Similarly, other executives included Jai Narayan Bhandari as general secretary, Amber Chhetri as treasurer and Tika Katel as public officer.
Outing chairperson, Suren Ghaley, expressed his hope that the newly elected executives, comprised of all young, energetic, qualified and experienced members, will drive BAASA to a new height. He also asked each executive to work within the framework of the organization, and even handed over copies of bylaws.
Ghale also thanked the election commission, apex council, advisory board, and organization’s other entities for extending full cooperation and support during his tenure. Avishek Gazmere, Iccha Poudel and Ganga Adhikari were election commissioners.
The outgoing BAASA’s team included Suren Ghale, Lok Safal Poudel, Indra Adhikari, Jeevan Koirala and Sushil Niroula.
(Sushil Niroula contributed to this report from Adelaide)
A total of 450 million Indian Rupees is added to the national coffer after power tariff has been revised that came in six years time. Chukha power tariff is revised to Rs 2.25 per unit from Rs. 2 by the meeting between Bhutan and Indian officials held in New Delhi.
Chukha dam
Economic Affairs Minister Norbu Wangchuk, who led the delegation, said that Bhutan will receive 450 million rupees annually in addition to 3.6 billion until the next tariff revision period. Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay made the announcement of the tariff increase at cabinet meeting with media yesterday.
Chukha Hydropower commissioned in 1989 with capacity of 336MW exports about 1700 million units of electricity to India.
The revision of power tariff by India is based on the increase in operation and maintenance cost, growth of hydropower companies in India, among others, according to Kuensel.
The Bhutanese Society of Western Massachusetts organized its annual musical event Saturday under the coordination of its cultural coordinator Laxmi Adhikari at the Rebecca Johnson School, Springfield Massachusetts.
Bhutanese artists performing. Photo/BNS Reporter.
According to the organizers, five hours long program kicked-off with group dances in both Hindi and Nepali, solo dances, poem recitation, solo songs, solo live songs and power point presentation from the artists from Lyn, Worcester, Hartford, Springfield, West Springfield, and Westfield.
Meanwhile, the President of the organization, Bhuwan Gautam presented the PowerPoint presentation about the history of the organization, its outcome, refugee success statistics and the need for a community based organization to help community to integrate into the mainstream culture as well as to protect, promote and preserve the unique cultural identity.
The former President, Board of directors and advisors of the organization were honored with the certifications by the present committee of the organization. Similarly, all the Bhutanese artists were given appreciation certifications for their performance at the stage.
There were over 400 Bhutanese refugees and other individuals from Western Massachusetts along with the teachers, administrators, social workers, law enforcement officers and others to enjoy the spices of Eastern culture.
Parsuram Sharma-Luital JP, a Bhutanese-Australian father of three, has become a recipient of the inaugural New Australia of the Year, which is considered to be one of the Australia’s prestigious awards given to a significant nominee on the occasion of Australia Day every year.
He received the award during the Victorian Australia Day Council dinner in Melbourne, Thursday.
Luital (left) receives the award; to the right is Susan Riley, Deputy Mayor of Melbourne. Photo source/Luital.
Luital was selected by a panel appointed by the Council that considered and reviewed nominations of people who have lived in Australia for 18 years or less and have significant contributions from all across Australia.
“The award sends a positive message that Australia is one more step ahead of multiculturalism,” Luital told Bhutan News Service over phone.
“I couldn’t believe about the award at first. When I confirmed, I felt wow! I am really excited that my voluntary works have been recognized and honored by Australia,” said he, adding, “I thank the people and Government of Australia for recognizing my small contribution to this country in the span of 12 years.”
Luital arrived in Australia in 2002, and became new Australian in 2008.
Speaking at the award ceremony, the horticulturist Bhutanese-Australian has asked the government to opt “flexibility” regarding immigration laws that punish “innocent people”.
Australian media reports said Luital, who works as New and Emerging Communities Liaison Officer at the North West Metro Region of Victoria Police, sternly urged the Australian government to repair its record of “punishing innocent people” with heavy-handed asylum seeker policies.
Luital (L) with Retd. Governor General Hon Michael Jeffery of Australia. Photo/Luital.
“Tackle the people smugglers and punish them, not innocent people,” added Luital, who has become able to establish a noticeable status among advocators of immigration, refugee and human rights issues.
Paul Power, Chief Executive Officer at the Refugee Council of Australia, commented that the award was an acknowledgement of Luital’s contribution to Australian society and will, over the next 12 months, give him a greater capacity to raise issues for new migrants and refugees in Australia.
“As this is the inaugural award, Parsu will be encouraged to promote interest in the award in future years,” Power wrote in his email response to BNS.
“I was pleased to nominate Parsu for this award as he has made a very impressive contribution to Australia in a variety of ways – in horticulture through the promotion of new methods of mushroom cultivation, in support of newly arrived refugees through his paid work with AMES and his many voluntary roles, in the promotion of multiculturalism in Australia through many volunteer efforts and in promoting police-community roles in his current paid role,” added he.
Luital with his family after receiving the award. Photo source/Luital.
Luital has worked voluntarily with the Refugee Council of Australia over the past four years in taking international issues about refugees and asylum seekers to UNHCR’s annual NGO consultations and to meetings with senior leaders of UNHCR.
He has established himself as one of the most active and vocal Bhutanese in the diaspora. He is also the recipient of the Victorian Refugee Recognition Record Award (2009), and Multicultural Award for Excellence for Outstanding Service to the Community (2010 & 2012).
In separate occasions, Luital called on former Aussie Prime Minister Julia Gillard and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres last year to raise issues of immigrants and refugees. He also hosted the Victoria’s largest multicultural festival. He is the founding and immediate past president of the Bhutanese Organization in Australia, advisory committee chair of the New and Emerging Communities Advisory Committee of Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia (FECCA), convener of New and Emerging Communities and board member of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria (ECCV), Active Member of Rotary Club of Coburg, community ambassador of the Australian Football League (AFL) Multicultural Program, Asia Cup 2015 community ambassador, and White Ribbon Ambassador of the Fighting Violence Against Women.
Durga Acharya, 44, who went missing from his house in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, since December 12, 2013 was found dead in a river on 18 January in Berlin, Germany. The German police confirmed the death and identified the deceased as Durga Acharya from the finger print.
According to Lalit Basnet of Bhutanese Community of Netherlands, the community members are planning to raise money for the funeral of late Durga, while the dead body is in process to be brought to Holland. Ram Karki, a Bhutanese entrepreneur, updated in his facebook page about the incident and expressed his sorrow over the death of a friend. Ram Karki mentions, ‘He was found dead by the German Police in Berlin in a mysterious way.’ Of course, he went missing from his home mysteriously and found to have used his credit card for purchasing train ticket since missing.
Durga had travelled almost 500 km away from his home– to Berlin– where no Bhutanese or Nepali people lived. Meanwhile, BNS learned from an unnamed source in The Netherlands that the deceased had long suffered from depression and had refused treatment.
‘The dead body shall be handed to the Hindu cremation company in Amsterdam by the German police by Monday or Tuesday’, informed Ram Karki to BNS. ‘It requires 4200 Euro for the funeral and the community is preparing to support the family of the deceased’, said Karki over telephone.
Durga is survived by wife Menuka and two daughters of seven and four.
A delegation of resettled Bhutanese from Seattle called on the US Congressman, Adam Smith, and briefed him about their concerns on Jan. 21.
Hari Niroula, Kedar Niroula, Laxmi Rizal and Rabi Banstola of the resettled Bhutanese community in Washington met and handed over a memorandum to the Congressman.
The delegates with US Congressman Adam Smith (Photo courtesy: Hari Niroula)
In a brief meeting that took place in Renton District Office the refugee delegates also apprised the Congressman of relevant issues like the question of dual citizenship, repatriation of some refugees, who are not willing to be resettled, continuation of the federal benefits for the elderly who cannot obtain citizenship and a few more.
According to Hari Niroula, the purpose was to advocate refugee issue on behalf of UNHCR, which as an Ambassador of UNHCR from Washington state, he accomplished.
Laxmi Rizal apprised Smith of the citizenship issues while Rabi Banstola raised the point of flexibility of naturalization test for seniors. Kedar Niroula requested for the continuation of federal benefits to elderly, women and children.
The Congressman attended to the points raised by delegates with passion and assured that they shall be taken to White House for discussion in the congress.
A resettled Bhutanese youth from Chicago, Binod Khatiwoda, has become a recipient of the “President’s Volunteer Service Award 2013″as a recognition of his volunteerism in the Bhutanese community.
Binod Khatiwada
“My joys saw no limits when I received the appreciation letter duly signed by President Barack Obama,” Khatiwoda told BNS. He received the appreciation letter on Jan. 14.
“I regard that the award not only recognizes my community works, but also appreciates hard-work of all the fellow-Bhutanese,” said he. “This has immensely encouraged me to be more responsible towards my society.”
Including a local resettlement agency Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC), the Chicago Bhutanese Association (CBMA) recommended Katiwoda’s name for the award.
The appreciation letter
He is a university student, and has been volunteering in the US credit and financial system trainings, citizenship awareness program and community development through different programs that target Bhutanese and other refugees since his resettlement in 2008.
The President’s Volunteer Service Award recognizes United States citizens and lawfully admitted permanent residents of the United States who have achieved the required number of hours of service over a 12-month time period – or cumulative hours over the course of a lifetime.
Recognizing their donations of foods and cloths for exiled Bhutanese in early 1990s, the Bhutanese Australian Association of South Australia (BAASA) honored ‘MaHa Jodi’, Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bamsha Acharya, amidst a ceremony in Adelaide, Australia, Tuesday.
Suren Ghale handing over letters of appreciations to Maha Jodi (Picture: Bikram/BNS)
BAASA outgoing chairperson, Suren Ghaley, presented the letter of appreciation which praised and thanked them for their humanitarian support for the Bhutanese community.
Speaking at the ceremony Acharya said,”I am very touched by the honor we have received today. When Nepali-speaking Bhutanese were evicted from Bhutan, India ignored them, Nepal government ignored them and their issue. When we heard that they were living in inhuman condition on banks of the River Mai, we decided to do something,” adding,”We organised an event, raised fund and we personally went to Maidhar to donate the supplies.”
Acharya also mentioned that his support to Bhutanese was almost out of his memory, but the felicitation reminded him of its importance. “You (Bhutanese) are great people.”
While, Shrestha expressed his surprise over recognition of one of their humanitarian works wholeheartedly.
“We do lots of humanitarian works. But, to remember our contribution from such a long time and honor us today carries a message that our works went deep into veins of the Bhutanese refugees,” said Shrestha. He also termed the appreciation as a unique of its kind among all honors received by the MaHa Jodi for their social contribution.
Meg Raj Gazmere, 18, died Sunday evening in a car crash in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Gazmere, whose car collided with a pickup truck on Highway 42 six miles east of Sioux Falls, died while he was being taken to a local hospital, according to his family sources.
The pickup truck driver, whom the South Dakota Highway Patrol identified as 26-year-old Michael Charles Fedt, and a passenger in the truck, Jessica Loosbrock, 25, are reported to have suffered non-life threading injuries.
Late Gazmere graduated from Washington High School in May last week, and was planning to join South Dakota University this fall.
The Gazmere family arrived South Dakota from Sanischare camp. None of his family members were reportedly aware about where Meg was heading to at the time of the mishap.
The funeral ceremony was not fixed at the time of filing this report.
When Hari Kumar Dahal arrived in Cleveland in June 2013, he felt the vacuum of getting connected to a larger community of the Cleveland area and also contribute to the community empowerment through education and creative activities. He was looking for utilizing his basic journalistic skills he acquired in camp. In October 2013, Hari attended the three day conference BNS organized in Pittsburgh, that supposedly gave more strength to hone his skills, proving to be productive.
In Lincoln-West High School, Hari discussed with his friends about some kind of creative activity to get started, who gradually began to get along with him. Six of the young high school students finally teamed up with the idea of publishing a bilingual monthly; Connecting Cleveland, the name for its purpose. “This idea of publishing a monthly paper did not get realized overnight”, says Hari who actually designs the layout of the paper.
The volunteer team of Connecting Cleveland
The need to have interconnectedness among the resettled community in greater Cleveland area matched with the idea of starting a means of communication, a platform to express innovative ideas and share educational materials. Thanks to the volunteer group ‘Connecting Cleveland’ formed in the third week of December 2013, resettled folks are now more likely to get connected than in the past years.
“We took initiatives on our own, invested time and money we could spare and generated the contents of the paper ourselves,” says Hari with a subtle sense of satisfaction.
“We actually did a major part of our planning during our winter break from school, the Christmas and New Year holidays.”
Hari Kumar worked as copy editor and designer of ‘The Refugee Herald’ a monthly newspaper while in Beldangi camp. His knowledge in the paper easily transformed to a more colorful media product in his new home, Cleveland, Ohio. Hari would not have been more ebullient to continue his passion even in the US.
Before Hari Kumar Dahal with his elder brother Ganga Ram Dahal arrived for resettlement, Teeka Acharya, Reeta Acharya, Mahendra Adhikari and Ganesh Bhujel spent time together in school to take up some kind of community volunteer work of 40-hours for the school requirement in one semester-long “Senior Seminar” class. “But after Hari joined us, it became easy to translate our discussion to publication of paper, with his skill invested for the project”, Teeka Achaya, a team member said.
Community gathering was organized in the last week of December and again in the second week of January to introduce the volunteer group and inform about the initiative. After the paper was distributed, there came strong positive comments and words of support from people who had already resettled in Greater Cleveland area. Moti Gurung, an active community worker remarked, ‘I had not seen such an energetic group of young people in Cleveland so far.’
Mitra Pradhan, Program Coordinator at Asian Service in Action, Inc. said that such creative ideas of the high school students put into action was not simply the publication of paper, but gave the community strong message that shall motivate towards an empowered and well-behaved civil society in the future. Mitra Pradhan helped the group to communicate with wider community and arranged a hall to show case the first publication of Connecting Cleveland in January 11, 2014. ‘Ganesh Pradhan has been very generous to support our work by committing to provide suggestions and donate $100 for the publication’, says Hari.
These high school seniors, except Hari, who are graduating this year, have taken this project to fulfill their school course work requiring a community service. The school district is well informed of the project and willing to accept their voluntary work of connecting Bhutanese community members through this publication.
When it came to cooperating with each other, the group members took up the responsibility equally. Teeka Acharya mentions of her contribution, “I have been in Cleveland for three years. So I helped to get in contact with resourceful people, look for printing companies in Cleveland, talk to our school principal and counselor and helped in circulation of the paper.”
Connecting Cleveland is bilingual—English and Nepali. The purpose is to serve both literate and illiterate folks. The paper carries the contents mostly useful to the youths and school going children, those useful for their education and available services and benefits of the state and federal government for the refugee population. According to the group, it aims to help illiterate ones to learn English, informs about the ongoing resettlement, social events and happenings in the Cleveland area as well as other parts of the US.
The group doled out 153 dollars to print 100 multicolored copies of the paper, which was arranged through online publication site, Newspaper Club, based in London, UK. The fund to print was mobilized within the group by seeking parents’ consent. But the paper was distributed free to the students of Lincoln-West High School, resettlement agencies, local Nepali stores and some mailed to interested individuals.
Copies of the Connecting Cleveland (Picture courtesy: Connecting Cleveland)
“We did it in a cost-effective way as we contributed voluntarily to the content generation, design and layout, some local travels and meeting”, adds Hari Kumar.
Although the continuity of the bulletin depends on the sustainability of funding source, the group is quite confident of its continued publication with updated features. ‘Yes, we are very conscious about that’, said Ganga Ram Dahal, one of the six members of Connecting Cleveland.
Mahendra Adhikari explained about the possible copyright issue that the group might face later when more materials are drawn from the internet sources or other print materials.
“We are ready to contact directly to the source when it is likely to solicit criticism of plagiarism or copyright violation”, Mahendra sounds confident. “Of course we have to credit the sources of that information we derive.”
Connecting Cleveland also aims to ensure the right of resettled refugees to get information on various services and programs at the local level and state level, either provided by the local agencies, or the federal programs that are aimed to support immigrants and refugees. “People in our community are not much knowledgeable about the food stamps process, coverage of Medicaid program, or the hospital systems and of the school district. So we want such information to be carried by this bulletin so that older people can read, rather than surf internet, which is not feasible for them at all” explains Ganga Ram.
“Educational empowerment of the youths is what we want to focus in our publication that will instigate more high school graduates to go to college”, adds Ganga Ram.
In terms of its impact in the community, this group of high school students is not sure what time frame should it take to show the positive impact, but remain optimistic about the message their hard work and creative ideas will carry to the Bhutanese society.
“We are getting trained ourselves for the skills needed to publish a paper. Once we are able to do things ourselves, we will train fresh batches of high school students who want to join us. This will generate a continuum of the able and skilled manpower for sustainability of Connecting Cleveland,” boasts Hari Kumar Dahal, the main person behind this project.
“We really want to bring a positive change in the community and we expect our seniors to guide us and support with necessary resources”, echoed the group talking over the Skype with this columnist.
