FROM SURVIVAL TO SIGNIFICANCE

Mina Maharjan Chitrakar
Managing Director, Swostishree Gurukul

Mina Maharjan Chitrakar, Managing Director of Swostishree Gurukul, an IB World School in Sanobharyang, Kathmandu, has built her career on resilience, entrepreneurship and an enduring commitment to education. Her journey to leading one of Nepal’s progressive educational institutions was far from conventional. It was forged through adversity, self-reliance and an unwavering belief that education has the power to transform lives.

Raised in a family struggling with extreme poverty, Chitrakar began working at an early age to support her household. She taught at a local school during the day and spent evenings knitting sweaters alongside her siblings to supplement the family’s income. At home, she also had to navigate deeply conservative attitudes toward girls’ education. Determined to continue her studies, she traded eggs from her family’s chickens for pencils and notebooks, small acts of resourcefulness that reflected a determination that would define her life.

Her entrepreneurial instincts emerged early. As a small retail venture began to grow, she reinvested its earnings to create employment opportunities for women, many of whom had previously been discouraged from seeking work outside their homes. Helping these women achieve financial independence remains one of the achievements she values most. Although her professional journey spanned teaching, textiles and manufacturing, education remained the constant thread running through her career.

Drawing on her own experiences in Nepal’s public education system - where she often had to struggle simply to be treated fairly as a student -Chitrakar envisioned a school that combined academic excellence with an environment where children felt safe, respected and inspired to learn. That vision ultimately became Swostishree Gurukul.

Under her leadership, the school has earned recognition not only for its academic standards but also for its emphasis on holistic development. From organising SEE Carnival competitions to providing international exposure through football training camps in the Netherlands, the institution has sought to broaden opportunities for its students beyond the classroom.

Her commitment to education also extends beyond the school she leads. Chitrakar has personally funded improved sanitation facilities at the government school she once attended, addressing a challenge she experienced firsthand as a child. It is a gesture that reflects her belief that dignity and access are fundamental to learning.

Today, Chitrakar’s story is one of purpose-driven leadership. From a young girl who had to fight for the opportunity to attend school to an education leader shaping opportunities for future generations, she continues to demonstrate how resilience, entrepreneurship and social impact can reinforce one another. In this edition of Business 360, she shares five things that have impacted her work and life.

Finding strength in survival and struggle

Growing up, my family was extremely poor. There were evenings when we genuinely did not know where our next meal would come from. That kind of uncertainty does not leave you much choice. You either wait for things to change, or you create your own opportunity. I chose the latter.

I started teaching at a local school and in the evenings my siblings and I would sit together knitting sweaters to sell for a little extra money. It was survival, plain and simple. But somewhere along the way, something quieter began to grow alongside it.

Those evenings with my siblings, tired hands and small conversations, taught me things no classroom could. They taught me to dream a little bigger than my circumstances allowed and showed me capabilities in myself I had not known were there. Even in the worst of times, hard work gave me the strength to lift myself and my family out of that struggle. I do not think of that period as just hardship anymore. I think of it as my first real classroom, one I still carry with me, gently, in everything I do today.

The determination to educate myself

Back then, my mother held an extremely conservative belief system. As a woman, she believed I belonged at home, working, not sitting in a classroom chasing an education. To her, and to the society around us, that was simply how things were supposed to be. But something in me refused to accept that as my only future.

To a world that seemed determined to hold me back, I felt I had something to prove, not out of anger, but out of a quiet, stubborn hope. The very pressure that was meant to keep me small became the thing that pushed me to strive higher. It made me want to learn, to grow and to build an opportunity for myself that no one was going to hand me.

I still remember trading eggs from my own chickens for a pencil and a notebook, just so I could walk into a classroom. That was the only currency I had back then and it felt like enough. Each small trade, each early morning, was its own quiet act of hope.

When it seemed like everyone around me stood against the idea of a girl learning, I had to become my own encouragement. I had to find belief in myself when no one else offered it. Looking back now, I understand that was where my strength truly began, not given to me but built with my own hands, one small trade, one lesson, one stubborn dream at a time.

Empowering other women through financial independence

I still remember the day I hired my first woman to help me at the store. I did not have a big ceremony planned or anything like that. She just walked in, a little hesitant, asking if there was any work available. And I remember looking at her and seeing myself, years ago, wanting the exact same thing - a chance… and nobody giving it to me. So, I said yes.

By then, my store had finally started making some money, enough that I could actually pay someone properly. And once I hired her, others started coming in too. Slowly, my little store became a place where women worked, earned and went home with money that was theirs, not borrowed, not given as an allowance but earned with their own hands.

I remember one of them telling me, months later, that it was the first time in her life she had money nobody could question her about. She could just spend it on her children, on herself, whatever she wanted. I remember feeling this lump in my throat when she said that because I understood exactly what she meant. I had wanted that feeling too, once, so badly.

Growing up, I was the girl who was told to stay home and do chores instead of dreaming bigger. So, watching these women build their own small independence, one pay cheque at a time, it does something to me. It feels like I am handing back a little bit of what I once had to fight so hard to get for myself.

A lifelong calling as an educator

My very first job, before anything else, was teaching. And if I am honest, that was always my real passion, even when life pulled me in other directions. For a long time, I had no choice but to knit sweaters and run a store just to keep my family afloat. That was survival. But somewhere in me, the teacher never really left.

I think it goes back to my own school days. I went to a government school and even there I had to fight just to be allowed to learn properly, to be treated with the same seriousness as anyone else. I still remember what that felt like, small and unseen in a classroom. And I promised myself that if I ever got the chance, I would build something different, a place where children did not have to fight just to be cared for.

So, after all those years in manufacturing, building the store, keeping things running, it finally felt right to come back to what I had always loved. I opened my own school.

Building it changed something in me too. It gave me back a part of myself I had put aside for years while I was just trying to survive. Every child who laughs freely there, who plays without guilt, gives me a strange kind of healing, as if I am finally giving that little girl in the government school what she needed all along.

Healing past scars by giving back

Of everything I do, nothing fills me up quite like giving back to the community I grew up in.

There is one memory from school that just never leaves me, that bathroom line. We would stand there forever, sometimes almost half an hour, just waiting for our turn. And because of that line, because I was late to class, I got hit with a ruler more than once. I tried explaining it, told the teacher I was just waiting like everyone else and could not just skip the line but it never mattered. I got punished anyway, for something that was not even my fault.

Years later, I went back to that same school, not as a student anymore, but as someone who could actually do something this time. I built them a new bathroom, bigger, cleaner, the kind I wished I had back then. I wanted the girls there now to never have to stand in a line like that, never have to feel that same helpless, unfair feeling over something as basic as going to the bathroom.

Sometimes I just think about some girl walking in there today, not having to wait, not scared of getting in trouble for something she cannot control. And that image alone gives me a kind of happiness I cannot really explain. It reminds me that everything, the struggle, the store, the school, all of it, was worth it in the end.