Nirmala Dangal’s goal is to major in biomedical engineering and perhaps also go to medical school. (photo by Bill Roa)

by Stell Simonton

Every Saturday and Sunday morning, Nirmala Dangal teaches English at the Hindu-Buddhist Spiritual Center in Clarkston. Her students are senior citizens from Bhutan and Nepal.

Dangal, a freshman at Georgia Perimeter College’s Dunwoody Campus, is a tireless volunteer with a passion to better the world. She knows what it’s like to land in a strange country and not know the language.

Dangal arrived in Atlanta with her parents and siblings in June 2008 after spending six years in a refugee camp in Nepal. That’s why Dangal now dedicates her weekend mornings to helping fellow refugees learn English. But teaching English is not where Dangal’s volunteer efforts end.

When Dangal’s family lived in the refugee camps, ethnic cleansing in Bhutan and a repressive government crackdown in Nepal had filled the camps with tens of thousands of people. Schooling was poor there, Dangal says, and medical care was lacking because of supply shortages. Her father, a doctor, treated the sick, but would come back to his family at the end of the day reporting deaths from lack of medicine and equipment.

So Dangal also volunteers at MedShare, an Atlanta-based organization that sends supplies from American hospitals to medical facilities around the world. She packs thermometers, gloves and surgical masks for distribution overseas. MedShare also sends equipment, such as x-ray machines that have been replaced at American hospitals but are still usable.

Dangal helps immigrants learn English because she knows the discomfort of not speaking the language. (photo by Bill Roa)

Dangal’s goal is to establish a similar nonprofit to send supplies to Nepal and other countries. She plans to transfer to Georgia Tech and major in biomedical engineering. She may apply to medical school after graduating from Tech, she says.

“I always wanted to do something in the medical field,” Dangal says. “Nepal is a beautiful place, but medical care is affordable only for wealthy people.”

Dangal also has volunteered at Habitat for Humanity, Hands On Atlanta and Books for Africa, and she worked as an interpreter last summer for Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services. She is inspired by strong women who speak out on behalf of others.

“I love everything about Malala,” she says of the young Pakistani woman who champions the education of girls and who survived a shooting by the Taliban.

Another of Dangal’s heroes is Anuradha Koirala, who founded Maiti Nepal to rescue women and girls from sex trafficking.

Dangal has written college papers about the problem of sexual assault, and she helped a friend go to court and gain a rape conviction after an assault in Atlanta.

She also started an organization called Youth Empowerment of Georgia, which meets at the Hindu-Buddhist Spiritual Center. One of its goals is to teach the parents of young immigrants about the American education system so they can interact with teachers and staff to help their children succeed in school.

Dangal remembers what it was like to arrive as a 12-year-old refugee at Tucker Middle School, where she says she was teased unmercifully because of her halting English. Many days she would go home in tears.

Dangal persevered, however, graduating from Tucker High School and receiving the Thomas A. Smith Scholarship at GPC. The hardships she’s experienced have given her the energy and commitment to seek change in the world.

“I spent six years of my life in a refugee camp,” she says. “I share my story in hopes of reaching out to others.”

Dangal spends Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Hindu-Buddhist Spiritual Center in Clarkston, teaching English to people from Nepal and Bhutan. (photo by Bill Roa)