Nurturing the hearts and souls of our scholars is as important as nurturing their minds. With that in mind, the Foundation sought to provide a fun and interesting event to expose our students and the local community to a bit of happiness. Our Program Manager, Nabin Aryal, had contact with a Producer of a documentary that dealt with the mysteries of happiness, its sources and its effect on people throughout the world. The film, simply titled “Happy” was being screened worldwide as part of a global movement called World Happy Day. Nabin knew that this would be a wonderful opportunity to show something that our students and community members normally do not see, and that the film would be an uplifting experience.
World Happy Day in Pharping, Nepal
For one day, the school was turned into a makeshift theater as our Rukmini Scholars, school staff, Rukmini Foundation staff and local community leaders were invited to watch this film. More than 50 participants were packed into a classroom for the screening of HAPPY. The program was also attended by an intern from UNESCO named Angelena who is serving in Nepal from Germany.
After the screening, the Foundation’s Program Manager led a small discussion to talk about the movie and about what happiness meant to the viewers of this film. Students, teachers and foundation staff all joined in on the discussion and the overall mood was one of hopefulness and joy. Even an impromptu pause due to a power outage could not dampen the mood :-).
World Happy Day also celebrated in Pittsburgh
In conjunction with our event in Nepal, the Foundation team in the US decided that we too should watch the film. Luckily for us, there was a screening in Pittsburgh at Loews Theatre. Braving the winter snowstorm, 11 of us were able to watch the documentary. Everyone who was able to make it to the showing found the film to be very uplifting and enjoyable. The Rukmini Foundation team in Pittsburgh was indeed extremely happy to know that neither rain nor snow would deter our friends from coming out to support us.
Some takeaways from the film:
While everyone enjoyed the film in their own way, there were some common themes that we got out of the film:
- Happiness depends on what we do, as much as it does with our circumstances
- Doing things for others and being part of something greater than ourselves leads to more happiness
- Meaningful relationships, whether they are with family or friends, are a key factor in happiness and cultivating those relationships are very important
Many thanks to the Happy Movie Team for making this wonderful film, and for letting us be a part of it by screening the movie for our students in Nepal. We hope that through the efforts of the foundation and through the support of our friends, we will be able to help these girls live a happier life, and in turn enrich our own lives and add to our happiness.
Bibhuti
