October 08, 2011, Dubai, UAE – There was a time when we see a person carrying a flag of NRN and promoting his legacy of being Non-Residential Nepalese in the UAE. We see him alone for a long time when many of us are unknown about the importance of being a Nepali abroad and our rights and legacy to go back to our homeland and use our hard-earned resources for the betterment of our birth place.

In many cases, much Nepali living here in UAE was criticizing his attitude and his way of working, many of us have simply ignored him saying that NRN One-man army has arrived in various events.

I remembered back in 2004-2006 time when there was very little done by NRN and many people were thinking that NRN is an organization of Billionaires who want to do politics with their money in Nepal. In some terms that were not wrong and still many of them are doing the same. As on our hands, there are fingers of different sizes and work differently, this man I am talking about here is the same, different than other so-called NRNs and his goal is to work socially towards the Nepalese community.

We see him fighting with local police and authorities, we see him asking for donations, we see him organizing forums and talking about Nepalese working abroad, we see him fighting with Government officials in Nepal, and we see him in various events of Nepalese here in the UAE and promoting the betterment of Nepali society and its values. All these are for the Nepali community here not for his personal benefit.

He is not other than the first person who carries the flag of NRN to the middle east, He is Mr. Chandra Prasad Sapkota.

Born in Dhading District back in the ’60s, grown in Mumbai and brought to UAE some 31 years ago as a civil engineer, worked in various companies at the beginning and started his own business in the construction field and give jobs to hundreds of Nepali and other people from South Asia.

At the beginning of the ’90s, there was no government presence in the middle-east, Nepalese working in this part of the world was in slavery, they had no place to raise their issues, and there were no Nepalese organizations to gather and talk about their problems and solve them. At that time many countries had their embassy representing their citizens and saving them from illegal trafficking and slavery but in our hands, there was simply nothing.

In that hard moment, Mr. Sapkota and a few others who thought and feel that we must have our own group of community and be backed by our government institution, we must have our embassy in the middle eastern countries and started a non-profit organization of Nepalese people Named “Nepali Samaj and being the first President of the organization he had worked from 1990-2000 and handover his legacy to another hand to reform the organization.

He was the first NRN president in the UAE chapter from 2003-2007 and helped promote NRN to the Middle East and abroad.

From 2007-2009 he was working as a Middle East coordinator and expanded NRN’s wings to the broader boundaries of the middle eastern countries.

He was alone to start, he was active in any cases that comes to Nepalese in UAE, he was there even in the night or day, he was there to support anyone who is in trouble, he never aligned to any political parties which recent NRN ICC members are in a branch of political parties. He never wished to be a political animal and take a seat, he never claimed such activities and asked for a seat in NRN.

Now the time has come, the time to change that mentality of political wills, time to change the way of the betterment of Nepalese in the world around, the time has come to change all migrated Nepalese to unite and do something for the place where we were born.

The time has come to choose a 21st century Nepal not the 1900s. Let’s begin with a step forward to support him and make our choice to be in the ICC and our voices heard. Your choice wont is wrong and your voice definitely is heard.

Let those sleeping authorities wake up and accept that more than 3 million (10% of the total population of Nepal) Nepalese are staying out of Nepal and make authorities take decisions to make rules and laws that we are fond off. Let’s give our supporting hands to Mr. Sapkota. Will you?