Giving Compass' Take:

•  Rita Thapa runs a nonprofit in Nepal but intends to only receive a large percentage of funding from inside the country instead of through other international aid sources. 

• What are the benefits of this funding model? What are the barriers? Why is challenging the status quo of international aid important? 

• Read about a different perspective on the relationship between foreign aid and young people. 

All the markers of a comfortable future were there.

Rita Thapa, then a rising official in the United Nations, had been granted a full scholarship to study at a university in New Zealand. She had just finished speaking on a panel at the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing. (The same conference where Hillary Clinton famously declared “women’s rights are human rights.”)

To prepare for her panel, Thapa collected her thoughts on future of international aid. It left her more convinced than ever—the system was broken. When Thapa returned from Beijing, she made three decisions. She quit her job. She declined her scholarship. And she cleared out a room in her house to start what is now known as Tewa.

Deep inside my heart, I knew that I just could not be part of the aid structure, and I just had to do something,” said Thapa.

Twenty-two years later, Tewa is a well-established nonprofit in Nepal, driving out discrimination and injustice through women’s empowerment programs. Unlike most nonprofits in the country, Tewa, which means support in Nepali, strives to collect more than half of its funds from within Nepal. It's a radical vision for a nonprofit in one of the world's poorest countries, where the average annual income per person is $2,520 and foreign aid in 2015 totaled $1.2 billion.

Read the full article about challenging the status quo in international aid by Marlena Hartz at Forbes.