If you feel to share this article, please do so, thanks frank.

This is a true story about Nepal and focused on the governments of Australia / Canada / UK  and the USA. I really hope that journalists in these countries pick it up and please contact me for more information if needed.

As you might know Nepal is a developing country with 30 million people, located between the giants of these planet, China (1.4 billion people) and India (1.3 billion people). Nepal is a beautiful country with 7 highest mountains out of 10 in the world. And a country with a lot of potential. The heart of the country is Kathmandu, where all the bigger companies are and most universities.

In 2006 I started, as extension of our Dutch office (https://www.javra.com), a company there. We had some difficulties to overcome but after a few years we established a very stable company. Our biggest problem in the beginning was that everybody did want to go abroad because Nepal had it own problems, no power supply up until 19 hours per day, unstable politics, civil war and many more problems.

But we did not give up, as many did, but we stayed. We faced the earthquake(s) in 2015 of 7.8 and 7.4 with thousands of aftershocks (even 6.6 and 6.9). And we stayed. We did not fire people, payed all the salaries and kept on growing. Now we are at 120 FTE for which I am very grateful. And we were able with the motivation of our staff to minimize the discomfort for our customers. A lot of our employees are here for 8 years or longer, because of our reputation, hard work and dedication. By the way we have a huge package of benefits for these employees to motivate them to stay in Nepal. In the 13 years I am in Nepal Javra invested over 25 million USD in Nepal……………….

In the Netherlands our COO started her own foundation to help children to keep them going to school. She rebuilded schools, helped with stationaries, clean water and a lot more. Take a look at https://www.shantipantfoundation.org if you are interested. Now she is helping close to 1000 children to make their lives at school a bit better as that is the future generation which can bring big changes to the country itself.

Besides that we bring a very good income to 120 families there is a whole small economy around Javra. Think about the security company, cleaners, drivers, hotels and so on. All benefiting Nepal directly.

And at the same time we try to promote Nepal on any way we can. That all sounds good and that is one side of the story.

The next part is for the governments, journalist and people with the heart on the right place. I really hope this is picked up by journalist and responsible government officials. And it is not only for Nepal but for other especially Asian countries as well.

The other, more painful, side is that to really lift Nepal up there need to be done more.

And the good news, in my view there is hardly money needed for it.

Keeping more people in Nepal and create more opportunities in Nepal. As youngsters are moving abroad to study in the US, UK or work in Canada and Australia, which countries completely opened the doors for experienced IT pro’s. The experience in Nepal is growing very slow. While those countries and others helping when there is a disaster like in in 2015 (magnitude 7.8,7.4,6.9,6.6 depth 10 which is devastating) 10.000 casualties and the results are still seen every day they are the first with aid (for which I am also very grateful). But it would be much better they stop getting (stealing?)  the talent from countries like Nepal and let them build their own country. They have to do tests in Nepal first before those countries give them a greencard or PR. And by doing that, most of the times with a very short period to decide, they are taking away the talent from the IT projects done in Nepal. A waste of talent and opportunities for Nepal. I think it is hypocrite. If this was not happening, Javra would have been 5 times bigger by now and so would have been other companies in Nepal.

And the saddest part? There are success stories, but not all that talents leaving abroad are successful  because of different reasons. Besides their high education a lot of lower jobs are done by Nepali Bachelors abroad. Their lives would be so much easier in Nepal itself in a lot of ways. And then I am not even talking about the social problems it brings, such as problems taking care of their parents, separation of families and so on. If it continues like this Nepal will go down and more and more people will leave, we still can change it. If not, then in 10 years from now Nepal will have only elder people and taxi drivers and low labor people (with all respect) and the chance is past because the cost will keep rising. The economy and development will be a disaster and more people will leave Nepal but very likely as economic refugee as we are seeing in other countries in the middle east and south America now.

My conclusion, countries like the USA, UK, Australia and Canada are giving shit about Nepal. Only if there is a disaster they fight to be the first to help. For the rest it is all about them, those countries 1st. Sad, very sad. And those countries complain hardest if people are knocking on their door for asylum.

But the real help is getting Nepal and other developing countries stand on their own feet by bringing work there. If youngsters below 30 would stay, they could do more than any foreign aid is ever going to achieve and Nepal could be another IT hub in the world.

Again I hope that this is picked up by governments and journalist and if you want to know more please contact me. Give Nepal and this generation a chance. You can reach me via frank.mollers at javra.com or via my linkedin of course.

I am Dutch, I have a company in the Netherlands, but I will keep on trying to retain more and more Nepali talent in Nepal. Not for myself but for Nepal.

Regards Frank.