Cooperation and Coordination with existing Nepali social organizations and groups
The following are various Nepali social organizations and clubs in Chicago. Their goal is to offer one or more types of services to some or all members in the community. A person may be affiliated with one or more of these organizations. Sometimes, a member may put sole trust in a particular one and in some cases in several of them. It is therefore imperative for us to have a coordination body for a number of reasons. Communication plays a vital role to conduct any program or function properly. At the same time, it is also necessary to avoid possible conflicting events across the groups as much as possible. In addition, it is very important to have strong unity among us so that we can work properly to satisfy the common interests of all of us.
To fulfill these objectives, all these organizations and groups have formed a council with one person as a member, typically the president of the organization, representing the group in this council. Meetings and communications among these members are conducted as per the need basis and necessary communications are disseminated by all the group members so that no members in the community are left with notification of the event or information necessary to be communicated. These groups communicate the messages via email, messenger or viber groups, Facebooks and other channels including phones in some cases to their members.
This group conducts its activity with total transparency to everyone and every member across the system. It is very humbling that the members have developed very cordial relationships and respect with each other and thereby recognizing the importance of each of the organizations and clubs. The common view of these members is to work for a harmonious environment for greater unity rather than compel everyone into one single organization to serve the community more effectively. They believe that each group or organization is more capable to facilitate different functions and events according to their goals as they specialize better in understanding their own needs better than trying to carry out every kind of function through the executive committee of one single organization.
Such a setup has the advantage of fostering mutual respect and understanding and creating a harmonious environment to benefit everyone. Furthermore, having several organizations to cover various types of events and functions provide added strength of having more volunteers required to work on a common goal when needed. This is also true when we have to set up activities at different locations as we Nepalese are living far and wide according to our interest, jobs, affordability, etc.
Many of the members either by virtue of interest in multiple groups activities or for other reasons, participate in different functions organized by different groups at different locations. Certainly, this is an ideal concept, and we are very fortunate in Chicago that we rarely see any conflicts and frictions arising among the members in the community. We believe that the reasons behind such a result is from the coordination and cooperation with equal respect to each and every organizations and groups irrespective of member size in one or other organization or groups. We also spell this motto at every opportunity when we have to conduct an event jointly. No feeling of superiority is permitted to foster in any function, and everything works properly. We have participated to work in this manner for a long time. To give few examples of activities of more recent times are (1) Offer relief service to the community member if affected by Covid19 infections, (2) Help in the first Nepalese Embassy Consular Service in Chicago and (3) Participate and raise funds in welcoming Nepal’s national hero Mahabir Pun.
Nepali American Center feels very proud to take a central role in bringing together all the organizations and groups together and forming such a council. NAC also believes that creating such an environment has certainly caused greater cooperation and friendships among many of us. We believe, this unity will be very important for all of us to raise funds and establish a common Nepalese facility in Chicago that can house a temple for religious purpose, conducting cultural activities for common joy and use it as a platform for our youths to mingle with each other and develop strong friendships among themselves so that we can handover the baton of preserving our identity and cultural heritage in the future.
