Help Krishna Poudel's Family Find Hope and Healing

In Loving Memory of my friend Krishna Poudel: A Call to Help his family

Today, I write this with a heavy heart in memory of my beloved friend, Krishna Poudel, who suddenly passed away on November 12, 2024. He was a kind soul, taken from us too soon at the age of 41, all because he could not access the medical care he needed in time. He leaves behind his beloved wife, a 9-year-old daughter, and a 2-year-old son. I want them to have hope for the world Krishna has touched. In life, we were his friends, and, in the afterlife, we are his family's friends too.

We are asking for your support to create a fund to support his beloved children and honor his memory. Our goal is to help his family find hope and healing in their moments of loss and distress. He enlightened every moment he spent with us and created laughter and joy with his jokes and pranks. Now it’s our turn to propagate this love and compassion through action. I selected a random amount of $24K for the 24 years of friendship we have had.

A little bit about Krishna

Krishna loved his country, Nepal, and loved his profession, agriculture. Unlike many of us who left to Europe and America in pursuit of a better life, he stayed at home. His goal in life was to make horticulture a financially dependable source for farmers in the hills of Nepal. In his dedication to this, he earned a Bachelor's and Master of Science in Agriculture and Animal Science from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Chitwan, Nepal. He also earned his PhD in Horticulture (Pomology) from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing, China. Throughout this journey, he did fieldwork often away from home. Finally, he was united with his family and was beginning his life. Last week, he went to a conference to learn about the Varietal Registration of Nuts and Fruits Project in Hilly Areas (NAFHA) in Kathmandu, which was at least a 15-hour bus ride. Upon return, he was feeling slightly febrile, which turned into a critical illness. Due to a lack of supplemental oxygen reserve at a local clinic in Pakhribas, Dhankuta (Eastern Nepal), he was taken to a local hospital where he was deemed to be in critical condition. However, the hospital didn’t have an ICU bed at the time, and he was transported 2 hours away to a private hospital where he survived a cardiac arrest and went into multiorgan failure. I wonder if the initial hospital had an ICU bed/ventilator or the latter had resources for advanced therapy such as renal replacement therapy, he would have had a different fate. In a way, he was a victim of health disparity and unequal distribution of healthcare resources. This is something that needs to be brought to the World Health Organization and other international relief organizations to Nepal to bring this to light for the entire country of Nepal. For those of you who are able and willing to lend me a hand on this matter, please reach out to me separately. For those of you who have not seen or experienced it, Nepal's healthcare resources are inadequate for its people and the same goes for education. Therefore, I am asking all of you for your generosity to give as much as you can; these funds will go towards healthcare and education of the two kids that my friend has left behind.

Every contribution will help. I came to learn that my friend Krishna rushed home from Kathmandu while he was starting to feel a little achy to be home with his kids. In his absence, if we could help his kids, his soul will find some sort of solace. After several discussions on how to help among those who knew him well, we have decided to create this fundraiser. Besides this, I call upon each one of his friends and my friends to stay around, visit his family when you can, and help with financial needs on a yearly basis with as little or as much as you can until the kids can be independent. For everyone else, thank you for helping and sharing the link among your friends and family.

I am relying on each one of you to carry my friend Krishna's light forward. Namaste!