He was humble orphan whose hard work brought him a better life and who never forgot the poor, uneducated and underprivileged people he grew up with, when he became a modern man.
Madhav was born far from the busy streets of Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu, in a little village near the mountainous border of Tibet. His part of the mountain is separated from the main road to the city by the mighty Sunkoshi River, which you can just barely see at the bottom of the valley in the middle left side of the photograph of his hometown below. This makes his hometown an extremely isolated part of the Himalayan Mountains although about 3,000 people live in several villages there.
Madhav Bhandari’s mother died when he was 13. She died at an early age because they were poor, isolated, and there were no hospitals or treatment facilities available. Many poor people in Nepal still die today because they can not get adequate medical treatment. Madhav and his siblings were scattered to relatives’ houses and orphanages. The large family was broken up because of their extreme poverty.
Madhav was sent to live with his grandmother, who was an uneducated woman who nonetheless taught him the value of an education. She made him study hard. There was only one English book in his school and he remembers reading it over and over again. This is a rare photo of Madhav as a young man with his grandmother in front of her house. The house was just about all they had, and Madhav went hungry as a child.
But thanks to the encouragement of his grandmother, Madhav’s hard work in school paid off and he won a scholarship to elementary school and University. In the large public university, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce. He stayed in the city to earn a living.
Madhav had a dream to become a humanitarian and return to the mountain areas where he was from to help the uneducated people there. He has a special place in his heart for helping the countless orphans who live there and on the streets of the cities.
Thirty years ago, Madhav became a travel and tour agent. He earned his living introducing foreigners to the timeless beauty of Nepal. He also married a lovely woman named Sita from eastern Nepal near the Indian border, and they have two children together, named Akshata and Aabhushan. As their father, Madhav gets deep satisfaction from providing them with a better life than the deep poverty and hunger he had to endure as a child. His wife Sita works in government service, and she is an indispensable support to him in his dream of helping to create a better way of life for the Nepalese people.
Madhav married Sita in June 1996
Here is a photo of Madhav and his family today. His daughter Akshata is a dental student and his son Aabhushan is in the science program at school. They are both excellent students with bright futures ahead of them. They live in the municipality of Lalitpur which is near the capital city of Kathmandu. The red Teeka on their foreheads are special Nepalese blessings.
In 2014 Madhav was able to devote his life full-time to his volunteer work as a humanitarian with the formation of Community Service of Nepal. It is his dream come true to be able to do this work, and he is devoted to always trying to do more. He has never taken any money for his own family even though they were homeless after the earthquake and went through the same severe difficulties as everyone else.
But in 2014, when Community Service of Nepal was a brand new organization, the Jure Landslide Disaster blocked the Sunkoshi River Valley and completely dammed the powerful river, it was a national emergency!
The Nepalese Army had to come and move the landslide with their bare hands to un-block the river before the rising lake which was created by the landslide would flood the city of Barhabise. Many people were killed, hurt, made homeless, and had their entire city threatened.
The Nepalese Army moving the river blockage stone by stone with their bare hands. This shows what a big deal this disaster was and how urgent the need was to help.
As a respected Municipal Elder, and one of the Founders of the Bhandari Service Organization, a family organization which has members almost all over Nepal, Madhav Bhandari was chosen as the treasurer of the fundraising committee for the relief effort. The committee managed to raise the equivalent of $2,000 US in a country where most people lived on less than $1.50 per day! Here is a photo of Madhav and the committee he led being recognized by the prime minister of Nepal for their tremendous accomplishment. Madhav was later unanimously voted General Secretary of the Bhandari Service Society of Nepal as a social Organization.
Here are some photos of Madhav, the Prime Minister of Nepal and member of the parliament as they hand over the check and distributing funds and relief supplies to the people who were affected by the flood disasters and Jure landslides in the nation.
The Jure Landslide seemed like a tremendous disaster at the time, but the next year it was surpassed beyond belief by the Nepal earthquakes of 2015. 600,000 homes were destroyed. The death toll was almost 10,000 people!
After the earthquake, Madhav and his family were not able to live in their apartment in the city. The entire building was unsafe. So they stayed under a large homemade plastic tent with their neighbors. Madhav was living in this tent when he did all of the immediate earthquake relief shown on other pages. It took months for them to be able to locate another apartment within their budget. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless, so apartments were in very short supply, and rental prices skyrocketed!
Up in the mountains, the house that Madhav grew up in with his Grandmother was completely destroyed. But, after several years and much hard work, it has been mostly rebuilt. It is an act of love to reclaim his heritage that the earthquake stripped away.
The Community School founded by the leadership of Madhav’s Parents while they were still alive was completely destroyed in the Earthquakes
Madhav was honored by the local government on behalf of the school management and the local community for his contributing to the school and community after rebuild the school by Child Fund of Japan even better than before. This is the school where the Scholarship Fund in the name of Madhav’s Mother was established.
These are accomplishments in the life of Madhav Bhandari, the Founder of Community Service of Nepal. There is so much more he wants to do…
CLICK HERE to learn more about our Humanitarian Work
CLICK HERE to read a letter to you from Madhav himself
CLICK HERE to see if you could help our mission in any way
Community Service of Nepal 