Meet Oda Foundation’s COO: Mona Aditya
Join us in welcoming our new Chief Operating Officer! Mona Aditya officially joined the Oda Foundation in May 2020. She was raised in the Kathmandu valley, then attended college in Canada and in the US at Cornell University. Since returning to Nepal, she has co-founded youth and environmental initiatives and, most recently, served at Teach For Nepal for 4 years. She provides direction to all Oda Foundation programming, as well as to our strategies for local and international partnerships.
I sit to write after my first three months of working for the Oda Foundation. Looking back, serving as the Chief Operating Officer and as a woman in leadership, it has been an incredibly meaningful journey packed with challenges. I have had the chance to get my hands, head and heart into all projects, as well as all the mechanics and systems of this organization. Project-wise, this has meant working alongside the healthcare and broader team in responding to Covid-19, including the returnee migrant crisis; working as a mediator between our Architect, Engineer, and labor team so that the construction process for our rammed earth birthing center goes smoothly; negotiations with our rural municipality on education collaboration; observing how some of our investments - like the new Women’s Cooperative – are now bearing fruit.
I've also been meeting our community - going on walks with children, and visiting families. We have had two deliveries so far in my time here, and both involved baby girls. Having heard about the common practice of celebrating only boys' births, and nervous and curious about how the family was going to respond, I visited the babies at the clinic and talked to the parents about celebrating their newborn girls.
I am third from left, helping the staff plant rice in our new rice field on Oda Foundation land! Agriculture and sustainability are passions of mine and are new focuses for Oda.
A photo from our relief work for migrant workers, who had been stuck on buses returning from India. Alongside partners and Nepal’s #WelcomeHome and #FilltheBag campaigns, we handed out 2,300+ bags of food and water.
At two other villages, about an hour's walk from Oda but still in our rural municipality, we lost six children to the monsoon landslides. I decided to pay a visit to understand the landscape, and to try to understand the grief of the parents. It was not easy to be there for this, and I came back to the question of what we can continue to do, as Oda Foundation, to make each life in our rural municipality matter.
All of this work has meant that the launch of some new major projects – like one of my passions, regenerative agriculture – is moving slower due to setbacks caused by Covid-19 and the monsoons. Personally, I've had a few rounds of sickness and some homesick Saturday afternoons, but I must say that I am both very busy and very at home here in Oda.
I am mindful that we, Oda Foundation, choose to serve here so that we can make each and every life matter. Despite setbacks and difficulties, we have benchmarks for this community in: education standards, health standards, access to development infrastructure, equity, and dignity. Through equipping local communities and supporting local public infrastructure, we will continue to advocate and work towards the achievement of these benchmarks.
It is a pleasure to be introduced to the broader Oda Foundation community. Thank you, I look forward to the road ahead!
- Mona
A photo I took on a summer afternoon in Oda. The large building to the right is the clinic and staff quarters, while to the left is the gate that welcomes patients and the rest of our healthcare grounds including the upcoming birthing center.