The Journey of Nepali Women Beyond Borders
For many Nepali women, the journey toward ambition often begins with distance. This might involve leaving home for a better education, moving to the capital for more opportunities, or even traveling abroad in search of a different future. However, this distance is not without its challenges. It comes with the pressure to succeed, adapt, and prove that the decision to leave was worthwhile. There is also the loneliness of entering spaces where no one looks like you, speaks your language, or understands the emotional nuances of being a Nepali woman with dreams that extend beyond her cultural expectations.
This tension is at the heart of Chori Beyond Borders, an initiative founded by Krishma Subedi. On the surface, it appears to be a mentorship program connecting young Nepali women with accomplished role models across the globe. But beneath that, it raises a deeper question: how can a girl grow beyond borders without losing touch with her identity?
Mentorship and Emotional Connection
Chori Beyond Borders operates through one-on-one virtual mentorship, linking young Nepali women with experienced mentors who share similar backgrounds. These mentees, referred to as “Choris,” are typically women aged 18 and above who are navigating career choices, personal uncertainty, and life transitions. Through these conversations, mentors provide not only professional guidance but also an emotional context that is often missing in formal institutions.
Subedi, who was a first-generation student studying outside Nepal, realized the importance of such a space later in life. She noticed that many decisions were driven by practicality, visas, and survival rather than genuine aspirations. Over time, she felt herself adapting more than choosing, allowing life to shape her path instead of actively defining it.
“That’s when I understood the need for a space like Chori Beyond Borders,” she says. “A space where you’re reminded of your own direction and dreams, not just your circumstances.”
The Concept of Borders
The word “borders” in the initiative’s name initially had a literal meaning—connecting Nepali women across countries and building a bridge between where they are and where they want to go. However, as Subedi spoke with mentors and mentees, she realized that borders could also be emotional, social, and internal.
These invisible boundaries include the expectations placed on Nepali women from childhood, the casual comments that define what they can or cannot be, and the limits created by class, exposure, language, family pressure, and fear. They also encompass inherited ideas about what a “chori manche” should do, how far she should go, and where she should stop.
“I think the borders we’re trying to help women cross are these invisible ones,” says Subedi. “Between who they were told to be and who they can actually become.”
Isolation and the Need for Visibility
Subedi points to the isolation many Nepali women experience as they begin to imagine lives different from what is expected of them. While society has evolved and women are now encouraged to study, work, and achieve, old expectations still linger in many homes and communities.
Sometimes, the discouragement is subtle. One phrase Subedi strongly resists is, “chori manche le chori manche ko khutta tancha.” She believes such sayings shape how women see one another, leading many to believe that other women may not support them.
For her, visibility is crucial. When a woman has never seen someone from her background doing what she wants to do, the path itself can feel impossible. Role models inspire and make possibilities visible.
“A lot of the loneliness also comes from not having seen someone who has already done what you want to do,” she says.
Sisterhood and Mutual Support
Chori Beyond Borders tries to respond to that loneliness through mentorship, but Subedi is careful not to reduce the initiative to mentorship alone. For her, sisterhood is the stronger word.
Mentorship can feel one-directional, with someone ahead guiding someone behind. Sisterhood, she says, is more mutual. It creates belonging and allows ambition and vulnerability to coexist.
Chori Beyond Borders describes this exchange as “passing the tuki, heart to heart, chori to chori.”
In many Nepali gatherings, Subedi has noticed men naturally forming conversations around careers, technology, politics, business, and ideas. Women in the same rooms may be equally accomplished, sometimes more so, but such future-focused conversations do not always feel as common among them.
Women do support each other, but Subedi wonders why that support does not always extend into open conversations about leadership, money, growth, and ambition.
“That made me reflect a lot on what’s missing,” she says.
Personal Context and Emotional Understanding
For Subedi, institutions can provide structure and opportunity. They introduce students to important thinkers, historians, and ideas. But another woman can offer something more personal: context.
Another woman can say, “I’ve been in that exact place before.” She can understand the hesitation of entering a room where no one shares your background.
That personal context became especially clear to Subedi through one early conversation with a mentee, Aastha Ghimire, an international student in the US. Aastha spoke about the pressure of moving abroad, trying to fit in, trying to succeed, and constantly feeling the need to prove that leaving home had been worth it.
That conversation changed the way Subedi understood Chori Beyond Borders.
Balancing Independence and Cultural Roots
Being away from home gives independence. A woman builds a life with her own decisions, income, and courage. Yet there is still an emotional in-between space where she may not feel fully free. She is grateful for the life she has built, but deeply aware of what she has left behind.
The young Nepali woman Subedi imagines is not one person. She could be in Kuwait or Kathmandu, New York or Namche. She could be trying to choose a major in a new country, or trying to convince her family to let her study medicine instead of marrying early.
Doubt connects all these young Nepali women. Many are making decisions alone, even when their choices carry the weight of family, culture, and future.
It reminds young Nepali women that their culture is not a restriction. Their roots do not have to limit their growth. A woman can expand beyond what she has known while still carrying where she comes from with pride.
The initiative’s purpose, Subedi says, is not to create extraordinary success stories. It is to tell a woman that her questions and struggles are valid. Her dreams are not too much. And someone, somewhere, has walked a similar path before her.
