Shristi Neupane

Without prompt, or any requests, our partner NGO, Eco Himal Nepal sent us seven essays written by their staff and asked us to publish them for the world to read. We present them here, in raw unedited form. They are beautifully written, informative and moving. The Coronavirus pandemic is a truly global challenge.

Fear of death (COVID-19)

by Shristi Neupane

It is very likely to feel uncanny by everything we are hearing about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The Word itself is causing much stress among people and they are panicking when they are seeing lots of distributing, news and images on TV and online sources. Sometimes it feels like the crisis is all around us. The crisis is not because of the Virus but is more lacking awareness of “Fear of Death.”

I feel there is a great difference between panic and awareness. With awareness, there is a sense of responsibility, a respect for the scale of the problem, and a calm consciousness of what needs to be done. But with panic, sound mental status is lost.

One of my friends from the Far Western Region shared the practice after the outbreak of COVID-19 that has been following in her region. She told me they dig a mud near their door and the coal inside the mud is used as a god blessing and is put as a tika believing it will protect them from this pandemic virus. She, herself being a devoted worker in our office couldn’t aware her society against such fear, as the fear of death, is deeply rooted. The social networking sites were people are not able to differentiate the authentic and fake post, the supernatural stories from missionaries in remote places stating the cure of virus dig the believers into the quicksand of such panic.

However, as said one always sees the other side much greener. This has created much awareness among the people who believe the scientific research and are educated. They believe the mother earth is adopting herself to neutralize the ecological imbalance. The awareness about personal hygiene and its effects in the environment, societies and in-country has ramped. 

As a program officer for Kavre District, with the supervision from EcoHimal Head office, to eradicate the taboo’s on viruses and to aware the local people, I ran district wise miking program in Kuntabesi Kavre. I found there is a lack of awareness among the people, they are not much prepared to handle and cooperate the current lockdown situation and social distancing. As a part of the organization whose aim is to achieve sustainable development through community empowerment. The community and society are always the appetites of such awareness program from us. I believe we are more responsible and should practice some awareness program from our position. One can be aware of the coronavirus, aware of what needs to be done to minimize its spread, one must learn from the experiences currently facing by European countries where the health services are ranked the best.

However, with the countrywide lockdown, we have halted the door to door social awareness program. Being, an integral part of the society and part of an organization whose ethical goal is to improve the social standard of socially marginalizes communities with sustainable development initiatives, I am participating in the direct interviews with local FM program and spreading the awareness messages via social networking sites to consolidate the genuine and related precaution and preventive measures that need to be taken to overcome the “Fear of Death.”

Shristi Neupane
Programme officer
EcoHimal Nepal
Bhaktapur