I always wondered why celebs in an environmental or social programme? They would be there for half an hour or so, they will turn around and may be they won?t even remember which programme they had been to? Bringing celebrity to a program means extra cost extra security extra management and many more extra arrangements? Why all those efforts and all, when we can utilise those resources for needy ones?  I always wondered why?? But two weeks back I got my answer in a very convincing way.

Two weeks back we students of SchEMS(School of Environmental Science And Management) B.Sc  in Environmental Management 7^th semester student got an opportunity to visit Bardia National Park-the largest national park in Terai of Nepal. Though the visit was just for 4 days we had lots of tasks to do after travelling 16 hours journey in a public bus from the capital of the country Kathmandu. How to do RESEARCH on park people conflict, Tharu culture and conservation, climate change issues and buffer zone management? Everyone was questioning themselves. After a very new and different travel, we finally got to our destination.

Next day, we got early in the morning for a short walk, sat for a tea and tried to interact with people, everyone looked very excited, we were shocked to know the reason behind their excitement was Rajesh Hamal (Nepalese superstar and WWF goodwill ambassador). He was supposed to inaugurate program organised to celebrate anti-poaching day (March 10). Oh my god another event, wasting money on celebs, I said to myself. But our faculty and mentors had different idea, he told, ?Let?s go to the event, we will meet people from different ethnicity and area there, we can interact, it will be a plus point.? We all said fine lets attend a program in Bardia as well.

We took almost 30 minutes in bicycle to reach the venue. Since we were not very sure about the exact location of the program venue, we tried to ask people in village but could hardly find anyone. We didn?t lose our hope and asked to people who were going in same direction no one would tell us direction until we said the program where Rajesh Hamal is coming. I thought what?s wrong with these people they don?t know the theme of program but they know Rajesh Hamal is in program.

Finally we got to the program venue, there were stalls for exhibition, guns and traps found during anti-poaching actions carried by locals and government authorities, it was also fun to see cultural programs. But still my head was spinning with same question, why a celeb? Still I didn?t have an answer but now I suppose I had already got the answer but couldn?t properly see it.

Later while discussing among the friends, we concluded most of the people were not in the program to celebrate anti-poaching day or to see Cultural show, nor they were interested in finding out how are anti-poaching activities were being carried out in their area. They were there to get a glimpse of the celeb, they travelled long in sunny day to see the superstar of Nepali cinema. We being in Kathmandu, never felt so proximity and stardom of a Nepali celeb, but a visit to Bardia changed our mind. We concluded, yes, most of the people were not there to celebrate the event but the organisers could share the activities that were being carried out in the area. The organiser could attract at least people from all over the village to their program and may be some of them seriously heard about the activities, they could at least aware few among them, at least got few more hands to help in anti-poaching activity. If a celeb was not there, may be very few would visit the program and among them very few would be curious about the activities and may be just few more hands to support.

Now I can say stardom really attracts people to a cause but organisers must be responsible to make best utilization of inviting such guests, only then it will bring some outcome and positive change.