Minute-First Meeting

NEPAL A United Voice of Hope and Strength

Submitted by: [Digesh Raut]

MEETING Details

Meeting/Project Name: Project-NEPAL A United Voice of Hope and Strength

Date of Meeting: (06/05/205)

Time: 9:30 EST 11:15 EST

Meeting Type Tele-Conference Open to Public

Meeting Moderator

Mr. Bimal Nepali

Number of Attendees

50+

Key Speaker:

Dr. Fahim Rahim

Meeting Facilitator

Digesh Raut

1. Program Outline

1. Welcome :: NASeA Pres. Dr. Ram Chandra Baral NRN-NCC USA Pres. Dr. Keshab Poudel

2. Introduction to Dr. Rahim: ANA President Roger Adhikari

3. Dr. Fahim Rahims Presentation

4. Digesh Raut: Summary of Plan of Action

5. Question/Answers

6. Vote of Thanks: NST President Bhuwan Acharaya

2. Meeting Objective

Our mission is to bring voices TOGETHER from across the world to support Recovery, Relief, and Rehabilitation efforts in Nepal. Develop a paltform/framework to facilitate coordination between different organizations at both individual and organizational level.

3. Presentation Summary

o Everyone agreed that there is a need to Develop and Coordinate all activities through a United-Platform for the coalition

involving all the current and future participating organizations

o The Platform needs to serve the purpose of taking a lead in Coordinating all the relief activities by various associations

on the ground and here is US. This is help to make the process not only effective but also duplication.

o There is an immediate need to start a coordinated effort in social media and Nepalese and other communities at both

local and institutional level for petition drive All the Associations should take a lead in their community for petition drive.

For detailed plan of action please follow the link provided in next section.

o Coordinate with various Youth organizations, Student Associations, and use social media effectively.

o Arrange and coordinate these meetings periodically and facilitate discussions and initiate exchange of ideas.

Everyone agreed that this collaborative effort should be a stepping stone not just for the earthquake for all the efforts by

Nepalese community in US.



4. Project Current Status and Plan of Action by Dr. Fahim Rahim

O Million Dollar Challenge Update

Goal : Raise $1M donations simply by donating $1, $5 and $10 $20amount for Medical and Disaster Relief Efforts

in Nepal to challenge US Government to match these funds to help with a $100 Million.

. https://www.crowdrise.com/NepalEarthquakes2015

Update : We have raised 200K+ in less than a month and our #milliondollarchallenge is second largest fundraising

group in Crowdrise. Rotary International on a global grant to match our funds 2-3:1, bringing the total to

$1.5 million. Dr. Kert Howard , who is a member of JRM foundation, is also a very active Rotarian is

currently in San Paulo Brazil at the Rotary International meeting, spearheading JRM Foundation efforts to raise the Global Grant matching to 3.5:1 Match

O Whitehouse Petition Submitted on May 27, 2015

Goal : 100,000 signatures by June 27, 2015, asking for increased US government involvement in the aid and relief

effort in Nepal and asking a pledge from US government to the same effect.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/increase-financial-and-humanitarian-relief-earthquake-stricken-nepal-pledge-100-

million-help-rebuild-0

Update : Less than 2000 signatures of needed 100,000 signatures has been collected as of June 7, 2015.

O Congressional Update

Goal : To successfully present a Bill in US congress to the same effect as stated above.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/NEPAL-A-United-Voice-of-Hope-and-

Strength/850113651708460?sk=app_190322544333196

Update :

Congressmen Todd Young has joined the Nepali Caucus (more information on the link below)

http://crenshaw.house.gov/index.cfm/ander-crenshaw12345

The work on looking for the right sponger for the bill which is currently waiting a Bill Number is underway.

After the return of Dr. Rahim on June 14th, there are plans underway to setup a meeting between the newly

developed platform and the caucus.

O Plan Of Action

Please follow the link below for detailed plan of Action

https://www.facebook.com/pages/NEPAL-A-United-Voice-of-Hope-and-

Strength/850113651708460?sk=app_160430850678443



4. Q/A Session Summary

O Question: Several questions were raised about the deadline for the petition and people who can sign the petition.

How do we sustain the momentum?

Answer : Yes the deadline is June 27, 2015. 30 days total.

And yes, Everyone Can Sign from Anywhere.

The only way to hold our hand is to keep holding the hands and keep adding more hands to the coalition.

O Question: What is consequence of not reaching 100,00o votes?

Answer : No legal consequence.

We are trying to push on both fronts, both the House, Senate and White House.

Petition if crosses 100,000 carries an official burden on White House to look into it.

When the Bill goes to Congress, it will help for the White House if we have more votes.

O Question: What went wrong with TPS? Were we honest?

Answer : The answer to the question on honesty is for everyone to ask themselves.

No question it was a failure in part of not being able to garner support but we must know that we were not

coordinated in our effort.

We need to learn from this and make sure this does not fail the second time around.

Its movement of the Nepalese people for the Nepalese people, we should be able to convince others of this.

The question we should ask ourselves Are we doing this for our organization? Our Group? Or Are we doing it

For our Nepalese brothers and sisters back home who need us.

We have done this before example Anuradha Poudel and it is not a competition this time.

We have one cause and one objective.

O Question: What are the main area that we need to focus as we go ahead from here?

Answer : Definitely we need a coordinated effort.

We already have a platform to step upon, we need to build on the momentum we have and develop this

platform as an apolitical movement for the people.

We need all the bigger organization to play a leading role in the community to galvanize the movement.



4. Q/A Session Summary

More on the details of plan of action in the Facebook page as mentioned above.

May be grab an iPad and start campaigning outside, if that is what need to be done.

We need youth generation and we have come across number of them, to come together in the platform and

give them opportunity to take a lead. Look for newer ideas and inspiration.

5. Comments

O Key Comments

We have always been fragmented as a community, but this is the moment we all need to come together as one

and as a unified voice. We need to make ourselves heard, and they will hear it.

100,000 signatures is all we need, and we have a community of just 300,000 400,000 Nepalese people in US.

We need commitment from people like Kiran Sitaula who challenged everyone that he will run a campaign in his

region to collect 5000 signatures using his means and contacts.

As said by one of our American friends there

The hand is already open to us and so far we have met only 2% of the goal we have set ourselves and it does

not make sense to me. All of us connect to Nepal. Grab these funds. Lets come together for this

Here is what we stand against :

We have hundreds of Nepalese associations and student associations. Including all the members in their families

we already have more than 20,000 votes right there.

Here is a simple math problem I would like you all to think about: * How many friends do we all have in total in our Facebook, twitter, Instagram? * How many photos and posts we have shared in Facebook, Instagram and twitter? * How many likes and comments we have made and received? * How many phone calls we make in a day? * As an organizations we do multiple events every year, how many people are we able to gather for it? * How many organization we have in our contact? Add all of those together. And lets all think about what we all are missing!!

Lets start with our home, our family, our friends, relatives, our old school, business, restaurants, office, our staff, our Indian friends, our Pakistani friends, our Asian friends, our American friends, and everyone else in the world. Most importantly our congressmen, our mayors, our senators and ask them to join the caucus.

What we need from all of you and your organization to lead in your community, together we can, united we will!!

Documents

Minute-First Meeting