Exchange to Change January 2018 E2C January 2018 web | Page 14

14 a l umni alumni panel Dilip Raj Bhatta DEM 2015-16 | Nepal Patricia Velarde GOV 2014-15 | Peru Where do you work? I work as a specialist at the Ministry of Education working on child protection and wellbeing in rural schools. I’m also teaching the course “communication for development” at PUCP University (http://www.pucp.edu.pe/). How did IOB experience affect your life/ career? It gave me a better understanding and analytical tools regarding development issues and public policies. Thanks to the Master I published my first international paper with IOB professors (Prof. Bastiaensen and Van Hecken), I can teach and share with students the subjects I learnt, and I made meaningful friendships around the world. My IOB experience expanded my mind and heart. If you were the director of a research fund, what is a research question that you would agree to finance? Action research about how to prevent and address sexual violence in rural schools though public policies, with intercultural and gender-power approaches. E xchange to change J anuary 2018 Where do you work? I have recently started working as a Research and Development Coordinator at Management Association of Nepal. My job is to prepare proposals, apply for funds, organize and execute programs, and give strategic inputs for organizational development. I am also working as a visiting scholar at National College, Kathmandu, teaching development related courses for undergraduate students. How did IOB experience affect your life/ career? The multi-disciplinary curriculum, experienced faculty and diversified students at IOB broadened my development perspectives to a great extent. Particularly, the research skills and in-depth knowledge on development theories and applications has helped me to assess development problems critically and make informed decisions at my work. Not to forget, meeting people from different cultures and countries across the world gave me some wonderful friends to be treasured for a lifetime. If you were the director of a research fund, what is a research question that you would agreed to finance? The recovery of livelihoods after a natural disaster is an important topic which needs to be addressed in any country. The 2015 earthquake of Nepal mostly affected the livelihoods of the poor and marginalized population in rural hilly and mountain regions. Microenterprise is one of the livelihood options adopted by the rural population of the earthquake-affected districts. Despite its significant role in improving the livelihoods of disaster-affected community, very little attention is given to the recovery of disaster- affected microenterprises. In Nepal as well, most of the efforts are focused on reconstruction of infrastructure, ignoring the livelihood recovery aspects of the earthquake- affected communities, let alone microenterprises. Against this background, I would prefer to study and understand the recovery of earthquake-affected microenterprises, taking a case study of rural Nepal.