Travelling is what everyone wants. We all want to go abroad, get out of our comfort zone, and discover the world. We seek for adventure, but most of the time, we don’t realize that we can make this adventure useful, not only for ourselves, but also for others.
When I met Sujan, I first just saw the Travel Influencer, making pictures and videos of Nepal. It only took me some time to realize he wasn’t actually just that: because all of this work he is doing is not just for himself, but for a greater cause we talked about in this interview
Hello Sujan, I am excited to interview you and share your story with our readers. Please tell little bit about yourself and your work.
Hello, I’m Sujan Pariyar. I’m 24 and come from Nepal. I work for the welfare of children, promote tourism in Nepal through my program “Inxchan” and run an online magazine called “Influencing Entrepreneur”
Since 2012, I am involved in a children’s home helping poor and vulnerable children. We welcome them into our home, where we give them education, food, clothes etc, and support them with their day-to-day needs, trying to give them a better future.
After 6 years, it is amazing to see how these kids have evolved; how through our project, they are slowly becoming nice, funny, smart intelligent children, and soon reasonable young adults. What we wanted to do for them, and the vision we had when it all started, it’s all becoming true right now.
What relationship do you now have with these kids after so many years?
You know in Nepal, we all call each other “Brother” and “Sister”, so they kind of always have been part of the family. I was still young when they arrived, I grew up with them too.
Running this kind of home is not just about giving them food. Every parent knows a kid needs way more than this: they need attention and love. There is a whole emotional part to it, a connection between all of us that is to replace the link to their parents that these kids didn’t have the best way we can. So we are a big family, all helping each other out. The kids see me as the big brother, some sort of a protector, and they are my little brothers and sisters.
Supporting one child is already a big deal, how do you manage to support 14?
My parents have been a great influence for all my work. My mom cooks food for all the children, my dad donates half of his salary, my sister works as a “manager” of the house, and we have international volunteers coming, helping out with the education of the children.
Financially, we are trying to be self sustained. We currently run a guest house and an online handicraft shop whose profit goes to support Children’s home. Also, all the profit from Inxchan Two Week travel trip and from “Influencing Entrepreneur Magazine” goes to the education of the children. The promoting videos and pictures I take of Nepal and of people coming here, trying to show our culture from the inside with a different eye, influencing a new kind of travel, I use it to support my big family.
So for anybody who is interested in children’s welfare, but doesn’t have the time or the opportunity to work in this direction, it is possible to donate for our children through a fundraising campaign we recently launched.
Any donation would directly impact our children’s lives, and help fulfilling their needs and dreams.
https://www.gofundme.com/children-home-nepal-fund
You can connect with Sujan on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sujan-pariyarr/