Young Nepalis abroad, tired of hearing only about the best and brightest going abroad to work, have started a project to try and reverse the flow.

The NRN Youth Forum last week signed an MoU with the Nepal Youth Entrepreneurs Forum to push a campaign to lure young Nepali professionals back to Nepal on short and long-term internships with selected organizations in Nepal.

"We thought: let's stop complaining about the brain drain, let's do something about it, that was how the idea came about," says Sagar Onta, Youth Representative of the international coordination council of the NRNA.

To start with, the program will look for applications from young Nepalis at universities and companies in the US, Japan, Canada and Australia for short-term internships in Nepal. The group has already signed agreements with several business houses in Nepal, including IT companies, media houses and banks, and in the travel and tourism industry.

"We are really glad to be working with the Youth Forum, and this could be the seed of something that could really grow into a movement in future," says Saurav Jyoti of the Nepal Youth Entrepreneurs' Forum, which has already launched a 'Made in Nepal' program to urge Nepalis to buy Nepali products wherever possible.

Besides the internship program, the Youth Forum also wants to start a mentoring program to market Nepali products abroad and bring into the country experts of Nepali origin on everything from transport management to civil aviation and information technology for short-term consultancies.

"The advantage is that we tap into a huge reservoir of goodwill towards Nepal on the part of people of Nepali origin who want to give back to their society," says Onta. "The advantage is that because they are Nepalis they will fit in better than non-Nepalis."

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