Nischal Raj Gautam
Nischal is a journalism student, youth climate advocate, and education equity campaigner. With experience across community reporting, policy advocacy, and youth leadership at national and international levels, his work focuses on access to education, climate justice, and amplifying voices from underrepresented communities in Nepal. Nischal believes storytelling is a powerful tool to challenge inequality and shape more inclusive global narratives.
“I first heard about Saphalta HIV Shikshya Sadan almost by accident, a passing mention in a conversation about children left behind by Nepal’s health system. I did not expect to find a school built entirely because of stigma, or a 21-year-old teaching 28 students in the same rooms that once sheltered her.
I grew up believing education was the great equaliser. Neelam’s life tested that belief and, somehow, confirmed it too. She sat for the Secondary Education Examination, known across Nepal as the “iron gate,” the exam that decides who moves forward and who doesn’t. She carried a diagnosis she had told no one about. She is still hiding parts of it, even now, even as a teacher.
This matters because Nepal has largely won the medical battle against HIV; new infections have dropped dramatically since 2000, but our textbooks and our neighbourhoods have not caught up. A medically manageable virus is still socially unforgivable. That gap is the real story.
The hardest part of reporting this was not translating the language, but conveying the restraint. Neelam and her students spoke about violence, exclusion and concealment with a calm that was almost unbearable to sit with. My job was to not soften it, and not dramatise it either.
I hope viewers leave asking a different question than “how did she survive this?” I hope they ask why survival still requires hiding. If this story does anything, I want it to make one classroom, one line in the curriculum, a little more honest.”