It has been a decade since Nanda Prasad Dhungana landed at Doha airport from Kathmandu to work as a mechanical helper in Arabian MEP Contracting WLL Company. Despite the initial struggle, he succeeded as senior health safety and environment officer in four years. His hard work was rewarded. 
Dhungana is an undergraduate in business studies from Tribhuwan University (TU), the largest public university of Nepal. In the early years in MEP, he learnt the basics of engineering from his fellow workers. Even though learning technical skills from colleagues helped him in his job, he decided to explore further. So Dhungana joined an online diploma course in health and safety for six months in which he excelled. 
In 2009, he was promoted as assistant health safety and environment officer at MEP. Again, he joined an advanced online course on the subject and completed it in 2012 with good marks. 
Thereafter, he was made health safety and environment officer. Dhungana’s course in health and safety diploma covered areas like: IOSH, OSHA, NEBOSH, fire and safety, confine space safety, work at height safety, electrical safety, welding safety, environment management safety and related works. 
Dhungana belongs to a lower middle class family in Kavre, a district near to Kathmandu Valley. After completing high school, he worked as a primary teacher in a local public school. During his undergraduate course, he was teaching part-time. 
The volatile political situation forced him to leave the job. He had wished to become a chartered accountant (CA), a lucrative profession in Nepal, but his family couldn’t financially sponsor his studies. With an unsure future on hand, he applied for European visas couple of times. He was not lucky when he applied for a job with Qatar Airways. 
The manpower agency took his passport and didn’t return until MEP sent me a visa. The agency lied to him about the job and said it was for the administration section. He talked about the matter with the company and said he wanted to return back to Nepal. They requested him to choose a job from administration or human resource departments. In the end, everyone was shocked when he settled for a job of mechanical helper. 
“During the training days, I used to take a notepad with me and write “how to do” of different procedures involved,” Dhungana says. He worked hard, and did a short course on supervising and gave trainings on scaffolding. Dhungana was awarded as the best worker in 2010, and Al Jabbar Company provided him with the Best Safety Officer Award. He is working in Ras Lafan Gas Project of Qatar Petroleum as a senior safety health and environment officer since 2014. “When I passed examination for the post, my happiness had no bounds.” 
He provides success tips to Nepalese workers who come to Qatar to do small jobs. “We shouldn’t be discouraged.” His success is a benchmark for workers who come from various countries, including Nepal in Qatar.
Dhungana is a familiar name among the Nepalese community. He is the president of Kavre Welfare Society (KWS). He supports individually, and in capacity of president of KWS, several cultural programmes hosted by the Nepalese community. His wife donates money frequently to social service projects in Nepal. A father of two sons, Dhungana has built a house in his village, invested in Kathmandu real estate, and sends his sons to a reputable school.
Looking back his persistent struggle and success at hand, Dhungana gives credit to his employer and Qatar, the “land of opportunities”.  In future, he plans to open a technical institute in his own village and to provide education for his villagers.
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