Brabim Kumar
Brabim Kumar is a young activist, writer from Nepal. He is recognized as a global young researcher for case for space project, development fellow for The Asia Foundation’s emerging leader for Asia program for 2016.
In December 2014, Brabim was popularly nominated as the president of Association of Youth Organization of Nepal (AYON), an award winning national network of 92 youth organizations. Few months after taking up the position, since May 25, 2015, in the wake of the earthquakes in Nepal, Brabim has overseen a large-scale youth mobilization in relief and resettlement works. Under Brabim’s leadership, AYON has also galvanized international youth groups based in Ottawa, Toronto, Texas, and Hong Kong. These alliances have regularly organized to raise funds as well as volunteer locally for AYON. Brabim’s leadership has also led Al Jazeera, BBC, New York Times, as well as national media to document AYON’s work. The 2015 post-earthquake time marks Brabim’s decade-long commitment to youth-led activism. In 2004, Brabim founded ‘Creative Youth Society’ and started a national radio show called ‘Youth Vision’. In between 2004 and 2015, Brabim has had several national and international exposures. Brabim has assumed roles as a Public Information and Outreach Officer for theUN Peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. He served as a National Communication Specialist for Nepal’s Ministry of Urban Development. He has worked with UN Habitat Nepal’s post-earthquake reconstruction platform as a communication and outreach specialist.
He has worked as Youth Radio Program Producer for Equal Access Nepal and UNICEF. In early 2015, Brabim was selected as one of the 20 young international researchers for a project on global youth policies. In 2010, Brabim represented Nepal at the 5th Asian Youth Forum in Seoul as a co-chair and in a South Asian Youth Environment Network in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2009. In the coming months, Brabim will focus on creating an accountability school to enhance citizens’ access to information and resources necessary to rebuild lives post-earthquake. In addition, alongside the accountability project, Brabim will give shape to a project – ‘innovators without borders’ – conceived to promote people-to-people collaboration around local innovations across geographies.
Based on his experience working during the crisis in South Sudan and in Nepal, Brabim thinks the international aid communities should listen to the people first and the whole aid culture should be transformed from “items delivery and distribution” to community leadership and resilience.
Brabim has been awarded as “Youth Gem Award”, “Best contribution during relief and recovery” and “Youth Talent Award” by various agencies in Nepal for his contribution during Nepal Earthquake.
