Santosh Nagarkoti of Helambu Rural Municipality ward no 2 , Kiul became an orphan at a very small age after his farther untimely died in 2006 and his mother got second marriage. Santosh took all the responsibilities such as her education, health, care and others of his small sister. He shared “At age of 7 I had whole responsibilities of my sister including I had to do household chores. But no one was ready to provide jobs to us in our home town. For my sister’s future I decided to work in Chowmein factory in Kathmandu with steady income and good family life was slowly starting to come in track.”
After the devastated earthquake of 25th April,2015 however, again problem had started pouring in for Nagarkoti. His house in Kiul got destroyed in the quake and turned in to rubble. From being an orphan another tag was associated with him of being a landless as his house was built was not his own. During these period only Village land rights forum of Kiul had started collecting data of quake affected landless and land-poor farmers and attention was also paid to collect data of those who were deprived of signing in grant agreement due to the lack of land rights certificate. Santosh adds “Our name was registered by the Landless Squatters Problem Resolution Commission but due to my father’s negligence we could not get land. After the support of CSRC and DLRF I prepared all necessary credentials for getting land from government.” The land rights forum organized several discussions between his family members and government officials to provide land to landless including him. Maximum attention was paid to conduct advocacy to the landless orphan Santosh and his sister. Finally, the struggle materialized a results for acquiring land to him.
Now Nagarkoti and his Sister have acquired ownership of 0.27 hectare of land in Kiul. The land acquired by Santosh was registered in the names of him and his sister. Santosh further shares “When all our hopes were down land rights forum supported us for acquiring land and making me a landowner from landless. As we were not aware of our land rights forum helped us to mark it with a surveyor. Now I have been included in housing reconstruction programme as well. Thanks to DLRF and CSRC, as they have provided me a new lifeline for livelihood and my sister’s future as well.”
