Staff Spotlight | Nirmal Gurung
Nirmal Gurung serves as a caseworker with CRIS’ Older Refugee & Immigrant Program.
On any given day, you might find Nirmal Gurung sitting in a senior refugee’s home chatting. Chances are good they’ll be discussing agriculture, reminiscing about life in Bhutan, and sharing their personal journeys. For Nirmal and the seniors he serves, these conversations are far more than small talk.
Nirmal is a caseworker with CRIS’ Older Refugee & Immigrant Program. This role involves meeting the unique needs of refugees over the age of 60 as they adjust to life in the U.S., including help with citizenship, support for medical and legal appointments, and monthly social outings with peers. But perhaps the biggest need Nirmal observes in those he serves is their need for connection to others. He shares, “The seniors I serve are always so happy to have someone to talk to–someone they know cares about them. It gives me such joy to see their smiling faces, talk about life in Bhutan, and help them with any challenges they face here.”
Although he is younger than those he serves, Nirmal’s life path creates natural connection points with them. Raised in Bhutan, he completed his university studies and started working as a junior electrical engineer in his early 20s. Just six months later, Nirmal was forced to leave his job, family, and the only country he had known due to political and religious persecution. He escaped under the cover of darkness by walking across the Bhutanese border into India. He and a group of others took a days-long trip in the back of a truck to the border of Nepal, where they registered as refugees with UNHCR. So began “camp life” for Nirmal and tens of thousands of others.
Almost immediately, Nirmal joined a group of community leaders to initiate some sort of education system for children and youth in his camp. They worked to develop their own curriculum, gathered children door-to-door, and launched a school in English under the shade of nearby trees. This first school evolved for a year, at which time a global education aid organization brought support via building materials, curriculum, and more. Nirmal designed and helped build a school building, where he taught for the next ten years. Recognized for his leadership, UNHCR granted Nirmal a scholarship to study technology in India for a time. He returned to the camps and established a technology institute adjacent to his camp.
Two years into overseeing his computer studies institute, Nirmal was elected by the people in his camp to become one of their primary leaders. He oversaw a group of 55 community leaders who met together regularly to discuss their community’s challenges and needs. Nirmal played a pivotal role in leading this consortium to Nepal’s capital city of Kathmandu, where they sought the time and attention of every foreign embassy present there to request a long-term solution to their drawn-out plight as refugees: third-country resettlement. This campaign proved successful as the ambassadors of seven countries (including the U.S.) later visited Nirmal’s camp multiple times, where he spoke with them on behalf of his people. The next few years involved much planning and logistical work to facilitate what became the resettlement of over 100,000 Bhutanese Nepalis. In 2009, Nirmal himself was resettled in Pennsylvania. True to his altruistic background, Nirmal became a refugee case worker with a local organization in Erie where he served for 10 years. He relocated to Columbus, Ohio, in 2019, and joined the CRIS staff in 2021.
He shares, “I love what I do, and I do not feel that it is a job. I see it as an opportunity…to offer hope to others. I want to live as a person of hope.”