Dadeldhura. 19-year-old Deepak Bhattarai of Amargadhi Municipality-7 has been doing ‘painting’ to earn his education expenses. He saved 25 thousand rupees per month from this work.
He has been working on ‘painting’ for about seven months with the aim of completing his graduation after passing class 12. He says that he started working because he could not depend only on his family for his studies due to the financial situation of the family.
Deepak’s brother is also studying. The financial situation of the family is not easy as the parents are engaged in farming. That is why he started working to raise the education expenses since he was admitted to the graduate level, he said. Even though it is not easy to keep studying and working together, his goal is to continue both for his future.
Like Deepak, Shivraj Bhattarai of Amargarhi-7 has also been earning from painting. He has been working in this field for the past 6 years and initially started painting in his spare time. Currently, he has made this his main occupation.
According to Shivraj, he earns between 25,000 to 50,000 monthly from painting work. He said that he can paint about four to five houses in a month.
Working in a group of eight people, he also teaches painting skills to other people as needed. However, he says that he will not get work for one to two months during summer holidays.
Likewise, 29-year-old Chet Vick from Amargadhi-7, Pokhara is also involved in painting. After spending two years in India in search of employment, he returned and learned painting skills at his own place and started work.
Vik, who has been working in this field for about a year, is happy to earn income by working in his own place. He also suggested other youths to learn skills and work in their own place as much as possible.
The experience of these young people shows that skill-based work can help to move education and employment together. It can be expected that if we can expand skill-based training, employment opportunities and programs to encourage youth at the local level, it will help to create a learning and working environment as well as reduce the dependence on foreign employment.