Sushil Pathak

The great Chinese saint Lao Tsu writes in the Tao Te Ching, “The journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step.” Lao Tsu’s insight suggests that we should first start at low, slowly develop upon it and thereby accomplishing big feats.

I have been very much impressed by “one dollar a month” campaign of HELP NEPAL Network. Thanks to BBC’s Rabindra Mishra for making this campaign widely known to many Nepalese, particularly living abroad by his popular facebook page. I would have probably never known about Help Nepal Network had he not been so aggressively promoting this campaign for the good.

This one dollar a month campaign at first may seem very insignificant. One dollar A month? What good it’s going to do? It’s just a dollar a month. These are the questions that first hit many people. But, don’t  just stop there and give it a second thought. Think again and it actually makes a lot of sense. Yes, it is just a dollar a month, but it can do huge huge favor for our people of Nepal because it is a collective effort. US department of Homeland Security’s record shows that 7,115 people from Nepal got legal permanent resident in the year 2010. Even only if this group of people decided to donate, imagine how much good this amount of dollar collected can do in Nepal every month? Some of us may be wondering how the organization spends it’s donations and we might be a little skeptical here. After all, it’s about hard earned dollar. In that case,we can always get information about all the ongoing and past projects from it’s website. We can also get the financial reports and in case we want to donate more, all the contributions made are tax deductible in the US, hats off to Uncle Sam!!

Well, given the dismal economic situation right now, we may have to think twice. Time is tough and some of us are barely getting through. A lot of us are struggling to find a decent job or to keep one. But still I believe, at least one dollar a month should be something we all can afford to donate. It’s only about buying one less can of soda, one less bag of small chips or in some case, buying one less single swisher smoke a month. :). This very insignificant give up will end up being a huge favor for our own people back home. So, if you have not already done so, please take a moment to sign up here. I promise, this will be one of the best dollars you will ever spend and you will be proud you did.