In the fall of 1999, through the graduate program at Antioch University McGregor, I was given the opportunity to travel to Nepal. I'd proposed to travel and work on a visual ethnography of the Nepali people due to changes in the economic, political and environmental climates. The only problem with this proposal was that it was too vague. I needed to focus on someone or a group of people. When I conveyed my worries to my advisor, she told me to just GO, that my focus would present itself in due time. My focus presented itself on the second day I was in Kathmandu. His name is Ramesh and he is one of thousands of homeless children in Nepal.

We met on the streets of Thamel. We gained a rapport by helping each other. He showed me the city and helped me see many different aspects of Nepal rather than just the tourist areas. I helped him and his friends with clothes, food, and blankets. I soon met his close friends. They were a small group of boys who, through circumstance, had banded together to form a kind of family of their own. First there was Ramesh, the leader of the group. He was small. His growth had been stunted years back by some unknown disease. If there was a guiding hand in the group, it was him. Next came Raju, the clown of the group. He was tall and skinny. A very sensitive young man, Raju was always looking for praise and acceptance through the laughter of his peers. Kumar was the tough guy. If anyone tried to do anything to anyone, he was the one who came in fists first to defend his friends. Ramsaran was everyone's little brother, everyone looked out for him because he was the youngest. They made sure he got all the essentials first. Then there was Kishor. Beside Ramesh, I felt closest to Kishor because he was the heart of the group, the peacemaker. He would help settle disputes and keep his friends close because they truly are the only family he has. Kishor never asked me for anything. He did once though, take me aside and point out Ramsaran's pants, which were worn at the knees, and showing a lot of wear and tear. He said, "Don't be worried Mike, but maybe today we could find new pants for Ram. What do you think?" It was touching. It defined who he was for me.

Ramesh and I grew to be friends. I could see him looking beyond his circumstances and to the future. He had dreams and knew there was a long road ahead of him. We talked often and through these conversations I got to know him fairly well. As we grew close, he explained the details of his life, how he got to where he was now. His parents divorced when he was about 10. His "new" mother, as he called her, didn't want children or to be reminded of her husbands former life. She would abuse Ramesh and his brothers mentally and physically until finally they left. They maintained a close relationship with their grandmother, who in many ways raised them. Ramesh presented me photos, glimpses into his past. He gave me a photo of himself as a child and a photo of his mother. He understood that I really wanted to know who he and his friends were. He wanted me to view him as more than just some homeless kid.

Through our experiences, I realized that he was trying to establish his cultural identity to me, an outsider. It was important to him for me to realize his role within his group of friends, as well as his family. He was taking up the responsibilities of his father while still simply being a young man coming out of adolescence. He has a strong sense of family both with his family and among his friends who look to him for guidance. Ramesh was, and still is, a cornerstone of his family and friends. He is not just some homeless kid. He is a smart young man, with dreams, goals, and aspirations beyond his current means.

There are many children like Ramesh in Nepal and around the world. This site is an effort to bring about awareness of such problems as homelessness, poverty, malnutrition, and abuse. Since my last trip to Nepal in 2001, many changes have occurred that have had a direct effect on the children I worked with. First in June of 2001, the crown Prince Dipendra killed the royal family including the king and queen after an apparent argument over whom the prince would marry. The prince had been drinking and after the rampage he took his own life. This threw the country into a state of shock, no one could believe it, and anger rose toward the government, which took several days to come up with an explanation. During that time people rioted in Kathmandu, demanding an answer to exactly why their beloved king and queen were dead. The riots were reported worldwide and many tourists stayed away as a result. Then the Maoists, a communist rebel group which wants to turn the Hindu kingdom into a communist state, used the confusion present in the government to launch attacks on remote outposts throughout Nepal. This bloody insurgency has taken the lives of over five thousand people since it originally started back in 1996, with the majority of those deaths occurring over the last three years. The violence, which is slowly making it's way right into the heart of Kathmandu, has also turned the tide of tourists away. Considering that the boys I spent time with make their living on the fringe of the tourist industry, you can be sure that life has become even tougher since their primary source of income is quickly drying up.

The Kids (Ramesh, Raju, Kumar, Arjun, Ramsaran, and Kishor) have made it through the toughest time of their lives as homeless people, and that time was their childhood. And as tough as it was for them, it's even harder for the girls, who often get sold into the sex trade. As awareness grows of children all over the world living in extreme poverty and often dying from easily preventable situations, Compassion is blossoming in the hearts of people worldwide. It's easy to ignore a problem you don't know about. I certainly didn't even know there was a problem, until I met Ramesh and his group of friends.

It took a trip to Nepal and the friendship of a few boys for my eyes to be opened to the tragic reality that plays itself out all over the world every single day. This project is my effort to spur others to action and to help promote the people and groups, which carry the physical, financial, and emotional load of giving these children a simple fighting chance at survival. They truly are heroes who help the helpless and give hope to those who have none.

Thanks to the continued efforts of people like Gauri Pradhan and CWIN, these children still have hope for the future. They work incredibly hard so that maybe someday there won't be any more lost children of Kathmandu.