Help Kalpana attend college!

Many of you have heard me rave about Kalpana Bastola -- Kalpana is passionate, deeply inquisitive, and a true change agent, bettering every space she enters.

I met Kalpana as her coach and teacher at the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, an ESPN program for young women and nonbinary athletes. (Cute photo here!) Kalpana joined us through a partnership with the US State Department, chosen as one of 5 women identified by the Nepali embassy for greatest leadership impact today, and potential tomorrow. And after meeting her, I wasn’t surprised one bit!

For Kalpana, nothing is impossible nor out of reach, despite the mounting and intersecting challenges of poverty and gender inequity. She recently was accepted into Kathmandu University's 5 year program to study Law and Economics and I'm hoping our community can come together to help fund her education!

In her own words...

I am Kalpana Bastola, a girl from a small mountain village in Nepal. I am 18, and I have completed my high school by 2022. I studied at a National School in Kathmandu (the capital of Nepal), as a government scholar since 2014. I was fortunate to get a quality education at Budhanilkantha School despite being a child of a socioeconomically limited family in a rural village.

As a woman, I always believe in humanity, equity, and progressive social changes. Over the past 5 years, I’ve worked as an advocate to provide justice to the girls and women in my society, helped village children with their education through a tutoring program, and even started and coach my school’s first-ever girls’ soccer team after being inspired by Title IX in the US. Two years back I also built a local women’s community organization ‘Girls for Girls’ with 50 girls from my rural village to fight against violence among women/girls. We conduct door-to-door outreach to educate women on their rights, support sexual harassment survivors, and help complete paperwork for reporting. We’ve aided women in fighting legal battles for justice, winning three cases! Simply, I want to keep making my communities in Nepal more equal and just.

To help my dreams fly higher and higher, making a positive impact on this world especially in the fields of human rights and women's empowerment, I have decided to join Kathmandu University for a Bachelor’s in Economics and Bachelors of Law. However, considering the economic condition of my family I will not be able to afford the total cost of my education. Therefore I would like to request all of you to help me and support me with my education. My total tuition for 5 years is $7.5K (USD) and I am fundraising above and beyond that for any additional expenses that may arise like transportation, books, etc.

Thank you, thank you.