Empowering a Pioneer

Ahead of next month’s fundraising Carpet Auction, one doctor explains how a Women’s Group scholarship has enabled her to continue her PhD studies.

Sitting at a table in the New York Ballroom, Samantha Tamrakar’s cheeks blushed as red as the sari draped over her shoulder.

The luncheon last May, hosted by the College Women’s Association of Japan (CWAJ), was to unveil that year’s recipients of the organization’s annual scholarships. Tamrakar was awarded the CWAJ-Women’s Group non-Japanese graduate scholarship, worth ¥2 million, to complete her PhD in neurosurgery in Japan.

But as she accepted her award, there were families in her homeland of Nepal sleeping in open roads and parks while being pounded by torrential rain as the ground shook beneath them.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the country last April left more than 9,000 people dead and more than 23,000 injured. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless. The day before the scholarship ceremony, 200 people died from a 7.3-magnitude aftershock.

“I never considered myself a patriotic person, but after this, I mean looking at the destruction, my heart just cries,” said Tamrakar after the ceremony. “I just want to go back. I just want to do whatever I can to provide any kind of support, any kind of comfort.”

Her professor at Osaka City College enabled the 33-year-old’s return to Nepal, where she volunteered for the month of June. He provided for her transportation and raised funds and donated medical supplies.

“The quality which always amazes me in all the Japanese is their nature to always help others,” said Tamrakar. “Nepal is very lucky to have support from all over the world. This is globalization. If one country is suffering, everyone comes together.”

Tamrakar conducted free health clinics with her former employer, the Kathmandu Neuro Center and Polyclinic. As daily aftershocks rocked the areas surrounding the capital, Tamrakar administered basic treatments and dressed wounds.

She also organized friends to distribute stationery to nearly 650 schoolchildren in the rural village of Bhardeu and arrange a dance troupe performance.

“Seeing the happy looks on the faces of the students, it felt like I had accomplished my goal,” Tamrakar said after her return to Osaka. “Their losses, their pain, their cries are all unimaginable and have touched me immensely.”

Tamrakar said her family’s dedication to education inspired her to help the students whose schools were destroyed. Tamrakar’s own home of Dharan was not affected by the earthquake, and her family was safe.

Her father is a small shop owner who has worked the same job for 45 years to school Tamrakar and her brother. Tamrakar attended the same boarding school in India as the queen of Nepal, before completing medical school in China.

“My father has been working very hard for my medical education. …He is still in a lot of debt to cover the loans from the bank,” said Tamrakar. “I am in the place I am right now because of him. It is his continuous faith and support that always pushes me.”

Tamrakar worked for four years at the Kathmandu Neuro Center and Polyclinic. Her mentor there, who had completed his PhD in Hiroshima, urged Tamrakar to study in Japan.

Now in the second year of a five-year PhD program in Osaka, she is specializing in epilepsy, a field with few specialists in Nepal. “In Nepal, epilepsy is still considered as a curse from the gods,” she said. “People really do not know that this is a medical treatment that needs attention.”

Tamrakar said she wanted to both educate the Nepalese public about epilepsy and improve the country’s testing methods. When she completes her PhD, Tamrakar will become Nepal’s fifth female neurosurgeon.

“For my PhD, I did not ask for one single penny from [my father]. It was a really bold decision that I made to come to Japan with no scholarship and with no financial support,” said Tamrakar, whose scholarship was partly funded by bidders at last year’s Carpet Auction.

“If it was not for [the CWAJ-Women’s Group scholarship], I do not think that studying any education here in Japan would be possible.”

Carpet Auction
Feb 6
5–11pm
New York Ballroom

Words: Nick Narigon