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Robert M. La Follette
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Last updated:
August 18, 2011

Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes Spring 2006

Grad helps Sri Lanka communities rebuild

Within a few months of graduating from the La Follette School, Shisir Khanal finds himself in an office on Williamson Street in Madison doing a little bit of everything to help people half a world away.

Khanal is the sole employee of Sarvodaya USA, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support Sarvodaya Sri Lanka, an agency that, in part, coordinates ongoing relief efforts after the December 2004 tsunami that killed 40,000 people in Sri Lanka alone.

Shisir Khanal

Under the board of directors’ supervision, Khanal handles budgeting, accounting, donor relations, communications, web-site and database development, fund-raising and coordination with Sarvodaya Sri Lanka.

“La Follette definitely prepared me for the work I do, especially my concentrations on international development and the class on nonprofit management,” he says. “Many of the issues we discussed in class I see every day on my job.”

La Follette School Career Development Coordinator Mary Woodward helped connect Khanal to Sarvodaya USA. “Until after the tsunami, volunteers ran Sarvodaya USA,” Woodward says. “They did such a great job fund-raising that they needed an employee to help provide some structure. I knew that Shisir, with his international background and interests, would be a good fit.”

In the year that followed the tsunami, Sarvodaya USA sent $3.2 million in donations to Sarvodaya Sri Lanka for disaster relief and long-term rehabilitation of people and communities.

Khanal traveled to Sri Lanka in late 2005. “I wanted to see the effects of the tsunami and understand what had happened for the year afterwards, and to find out what Sarvodaya USA should do and what would be the best way to help,” he says.

Sri Lanka and other countries the tsunami hit had poor infrastructure to start with, Khanal notes. Now, supplies and skilled labor are hard to find. “I visited places where village after village was completely wiped away,” he says. “Just to restore what was lost is a big challenge.”

One man’s story stays with Khanal months after meeting him. The man is a village administrator who lost his wife, three children, a sister and a nephew in the tsunami.

“He survived only because he had gone to town to fill up the tank of his motorbike,” Khanal says. “Of the people I met, he was not the worst off. Matter of fact, he is quite well off, has a government job, lives in a rented place, unlike others who live in temporary shelters,” Khanal says. “At the same time, he was the first person in whom I saw the deep effects of the tsunami. Only when talking with him did I really realize how, even after one year, the psychological effects and trauma lingered.”

“People in the United States and elsewhere recognize that long-term healing must take place in Sri Lanka and other countries hit by the tsunami,” he adds. “Their ongoing support is gratifying.”

Index to La Follette Notes spring 2006