NEPAL's 'Wireless Man of Miyagdi' Mahabir Pun has now set his sights on building a college for his native village of Nangi in eight years' time.

Given that all his earlier projects have been realised, or in the process of expanding, it's a safe bet that Pun's college will be up and running in the village by 2015.

"Whether we have money or not, we'll start this college. The year 2015 is just a deadline. The college will be up by 2015, if not before that," said an adamant Pun, 52, in a recent interview.

Among the reasons for the college, said Pun, is the need for Nepalese to acquire skills that give them greater marketability and choice as overseas workers.

Recounting a meeting he had Tuesday with 20 Nepalese nationals working in Malaysia - 12 of whom were from his own village - Pun said they were all either security guards or construction workers.

"If you were in the Nepalese army, then you may be employed in Malaysia as a security guard. But every other Nepali is doing construction work, which earns them only RM400-RM500 monthly," said Pun.

"There are about 200,000 Nepalese in Malaysia. But after paying for their daily living expenses and their debts to the recruitment agencies in Malaysia and Nepal, they have nothing left to send home to their families. It's as if they don't earn any money at all," he added.

Pun hopes that the college, apart from conducting skills-based courses to school-leavers, can also offer a liberal arts education for high school graduates.

Pun, who was a teacher in Nepal for 12 years before being awarded a scholarship to study at the University of Nebraska in the US, was in Kuala Lumpur for a two-day visit.

Magsaysay Award winner

He had arrived from a week's stay in Manila to receive the coveted 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership - the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Pun was cited, said the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, for 'his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal and bringing progress to remote mountain areas by connecting his village to the global village'.

A key figure in the founding of the Himanchal high school in Nangi in 1992, Pun also set up a wireless Intranet network that now spans 13 villages in the Myagdi district (including Nangi) and ten other villages outside the district.

He also pioneered the use of the Internet in Nepal to better the lives of rural communities by enabling them to reach out to other people elsewhere in the world.

Not a mean feat considering Nangi vlllage, resting in the Himalayan mid-hills, is seven hours' trek from the nearest road and a whole day's journey from the nearest telephone.

Families, in Nangi's subsistence-economy, raise just enough sheep, goat, cattle or chicken or grow just enough crops such as corn, potato, vegetables, and beans to sustain themselves.

If any one was looking to buy, for instance, a buffalo or ox that could not be found within the village, he would previously have had to travel four days to several weeks going from one village to another to find a seller.

Now, with a 'communications centre' situated in each of the 23 villages - each centre is fitted with four to five used computers - that are on Pun's wireless Intranet network, villagers can find out what is wanted or up for sale and for what price.

"It saves villagers time, money, and hardship. Villagers just put up a picture of the goat they are selling, state how much it costs, and buyers come straight to their village to pay," said Pun.

The Himanchal high school - which provides up to secondary-level education and skills training - is also a far cry from his childhood, when the highest education available in the village was seventh grade.

Classes during Pun's time were previously conducted without the use of pencils, paper, or textbooks.

'Tele-teaching' sessions

Now, thanks to Pun and local and foreign assistance, schoolchildren in Nangi and other villages are not only using government-supplied textbooks, but are also engaging with teachers from other schools in "tele-teaching" sessions conducted over the Intranet.

While professional medical treatment, furthermore, used to be beyond the reach of villagers, volunteer doctors in the nearest town of Pkhara are regularly consulted by villagers through wireless communication.

Through the Internet, villagers are also marketing their products and services - from handicraft, hand-made paper, and yak-derived products to campsites outfitted with solar-powered hot showers, eco-tours and 'village tourism' packages - to the outside world and bringing in revenue.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Pun paid scant regard when asked about the praises and accolades he has received internationally for his work. Even the Magsaysay award, which comes with US$50,000 cash reward, is helpful only to the extent it can help people in his village.

"I'm not interested in receiving awards when they don't come with cash rewards," said Pun.

"But if there's a cash reward, then I'm interested, because that will help to set up things in Myagdi" said Pun with a smile.

FAUWAZ ABDUL AZIZ is a Malaysiakini team member.