If you too are religiously following lockdown like us, thank you. Three days into the lockdown and we have followed everything other magazines and articles have asked us to do. Binged on BoJack Horseman and Westworld, closed zillions ads while watching some early 90s movies and watched every episode of Key Peele and SNL and boy are we done with this binging thing. We are penning this down in hopes that there are other individuals who are tired of what once was a prized luxury.

Without further ado (our alternate self also wanted to do a YouTube video), let’s get started with the list.

a) Learn about Non For Profit your friends/colleagues are leading

If there’s one thing the world needs more now than any other time before in the history of mankind is individuals rooting for deep causes.

As we have gone about our lives scrolling through our feeds, seldom paying attention to that one guy/girl who keeps posting about his/her work on education or poverty alleviation, gender equity or climate action. Now is the time to take a moment and learn about nonprofits in your surrounding/community/friend circle and find ways to connect/associate with the cause. A simple shoutout over your social media handles will go a long way. Become a proud CHAMPION!!

These are some of the amazing non for profits/social enterprises led by our friends and colleagues which we are really proud of.

Udeshya: Girls in STEM

Udeshya is a social enterprise with a mission to remove gender barriers in Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) learning in order to increase the diversity of the workforce and ideas in the STEAM fields, towards a more inclusive society. Through their residential programs, the team envisions to build a community of young girls and boys who share this vision for a more inclusive society built by a diverse workforce.

Changing Stories Nepal

Changing Stories Nepal works with primary level students who are not learning and performing at their grade levels. So far the team has run 45 courses (675 students) for students in Hetauda and Dang. The main idea behind the project is that no student who has fallen behind in their studies should stay behind. For this, we hire local youths, train them, and each fellow takes responsibility for teaching our Nepali and Maths curriculum to 15 students. Learn more about the movement and find ways to connect/help with the cause here.

b) Build your website

If you are someone who is worried about the future of your business and wants a shift in the approach of how business is done then it is the right time to make your business and brand and gear to make profit by boosting your business online. And, you can do this for free( under Yelko subdomain) until you are satisfied with the Yelko product. Using the Yelko subdomain you can learn how to create a website in just less than 10 minutes. Yelko offers more than 70+ pre designed templates and according to the nature of your business you can choose your favourite templates and make necessary edits you want on your website.

Yelko is an automation platform designed with a vision to reduce the marketing cost of SMEs and freelancers. Yelko as a platform has three key features integrated in the platform i.e. can list their business in the platform, buy dream domain through e-sewa, Khalti and Paypal and also can build their own website with Yelko website builder.

You can learn how to make websites (with Yelko subdomain) and list your business (with directory features) and later upgrade your paid service (directory /websites) which ranges from 299.00 per year to 8848.00 per year. And, if there are any affordable IT solutions in the market then it’s Yelko. You can save your money, build your business as a brand and learn basic computer skills by practicing social distancing. More than 200 people are using this platform to build their own website; are you the next one?

c) Earn off your Closet!

Remember that 40k lehenga that you bought on your B.F.F wedding, or one of those impulse purchases just because you love the color and just wanted to have it inside your closets. Yeah, we know mistakes happen but 2020 have you covered.

With the millennials and Gen “Z” defining the ecosystem, services like Antidote Nepal are all the rage now. Antidote Nepal is a peer-to-peer clothing rental service that lets you earn off your closet by simply leasing out your ethnic dresses (remember that excruciating price tagged dress which is lying dead inside your closet) and at the same time lets you rent out beautiful ethnic dresses at fraction of the original retail price (as low as 90% off). You can list your clothes to be reviewed by simply filling out a form.

Now that you’ve reclaimed acres of spaces inside your closet, have earned a decent passive income, and played your part in disrupting the World’s Second Most Polluting Industry — Fashion, we bet you can’t help but feel like a Superwoman/man. A total of 15 kg carbon emissions are offset every time they rent your outfits. Talk about “sharing is caring!

d) Tune in to a podcast!

There are a plethora of podcasts one can tune into these days. On this edition, however, we want to shower attention to some notable homegrown podcasts.

My Emotions Matter:

A podcast which revolves around the lines of knowing oneself, improving relationships, and living a life full of purpose. If you are feeling irie lately, might just as well tune in and learn a thing or two about emotional intelligence and mental health. More power to the team!! Follow them on Facebook and YouTube (Get new contents every Tuesdays at 8 PM).

Mero Dui Paisa:

Loosely translated as “My Two Cents” and hosted by our very own coffee man who also happens to know how to run an organic Nepali podcast, Mr. Ashish Adhikari; this podcast is all about life, startup and all those beautiful things that happen in between. Churning out quality content once every three weeks on their YouTube channel, this podcast is highly recommended to those who are living abroad and contemplating the decision to come back home.

Ke Chha Ta?

Ke Chha ta? is hosted by Mr. Ayush Birendra Bajracharya and Mr. Amul Baidya, two friends in their late 20’s share chapters of their lives, past and present. Their selection of topics from ambitions to insecurities is refreshing to say the least. The team has recently forayed into Entrepreneurship and social business. A lot to come from these two authentic blokes in the near future. Find them on their YouTube abode.

Millennials of Kathmandu:

As the name aptly suggests, this fresh and up and coming podcast/channel is hosted by Ms. Shweta Sherchan and Ms. Aparna Poudyal, two millennial women who take up some really hard hitting realities of societies like ours and spark conversations around it through their YouTube channel. These ladies talk about life, being unapologetic, and some more life and nuanced themes, we millennials are all too familiar with.

Online Live Storytelling — Story Time in Nepal

“Story Time in Nepal ‘’ is a social page initiated by Kathalaya Inc. that was created to celebrate stories and revive the love for folklore among parents and children. As children are stranded at home they have little activity at home to satiate their creative minds.

Group of passionate storytellers have mustered up and are reciting stories every day at 3 PM for 45 minutes. Tune into this amazing movement and sit around the Facebook Live to experience stories with your kids (The thought alone makes us all mushy!)

e) Attend a virtual musical concert!

Social Cafe is an entrepreneurial hub for casual meetups, networks, co-create, sharing ideas, eat, drink and have fun. In response to COVID-19, social cafe has launched a virtual concert with a name musical outbreak where various music artists will sing songs by doing a Facebook live through Social Cafe page or artist page. You can listen to various Nepali artists like Ishan R. Onta, Aarif Raut, Abhishek S. Mishra, Dr, Dhrubesh Regmi, Ruchan Shrestha while staying home.

This initiative is a form of music therapy for the public who have been locked down in the home and have been having negative thoughts regarding the outrange of virus. The concept of music therapy was discovered by Holly Chartand who was a trained vocalist when she realized she could help and support people through music and have a positive impact through music. You can invest your time in your well being by listening to your favorite music.

f) Attend IVY League courses!

If you did not / could not get into those IVY league giants. No biggie! They decided to come to you. You can now access 450 Ivy League courses for free. If you are more into peer-reviewed articles (trust us when it is coming from graduate school students, there are plenty of ‘em), JSTOR have made 6000 contents available for readers to read for (no prize for guessing!) FREE. You can now rifle through all its open access content without having to create an account.

Psst! Udemy and edX too have tonnes of materials/courses for FREE!

g) Binge Responsibly?

Binging on your favorite Netflix and Prime series all day is all fine and dandy but hey!, once in a while get out of that bed and get some chores done y’all! Make a list of all the things your mother/father does everyday to keep your home operational and take the responsibility to complete at least 33% of the task (given you are a family of 3) and 25% of the task (given you are a family of four). You get the drill right!

Make yourself and your family an exotic delicious dish. We are in love with Chorba (a delicious vegetarian traditional Algerian dish) which also happens to be a numero uno sustainable dish celebrated around the world. Learn more about Sustainable dishes (Yes, you read that right) here.

h) Save the World!

As we got into sustainability, you knew this was coming right? You are saving the world by simply practicing social distancing. Kudos to you my friend! We love you. While you are at it why not learn how to save the world 101, eh? No, this does not include taking up on social media and writing how some individuals/groups (other than you, of course) are responsible for the crisis, we find ourselves in every once in a while. It’s even more convenient than that and all it requires is common sense. So, here’s our (technically UN’s) The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving The World.

i) Experiment movie making!

Video has been the best and efficient way of Storytelling since the dawn of the movie. We as a movie consumer also have become very much attached with videos. Since we are locked down in our own homes, we can come up with a Video Podcast, telling your story in an exciting way. This can be your first step towards video making. Start with Simple video podcast about your life experiences, stories and your world view.

There are tons of tools that help you to start on your small movie projects. Tiktok is one of the most popular platforms, you can use the hyper lapse app of Instagram which is free, you wanna tell your story in more exciting ways, use vine, it is also a free tool. These kinds of tools are for newbies who are just starting in the world of video making. If you have a computer in house start learning Adobe premiere pro, Adobe illustrator and Adobe after effects to edit your video footage. If you are not a big fan of Adobe you can use Filmora, Final Cut Pro for Apple, Sony Vega, these are the tools which help you to edit your videos, add sounds and music to give a best storytelling experience.

If you are Motion Graphic and Animation Fan like we are in Creabiz Studio, You can go start your journey to the animation world with Adobe Illustration, to make and illustrate your characters, then you can use Adobe After effects to Animate your characters to life. Otherwise you can also use Animaker, Vyond, Blender and other famous tools like Maya and Cinema 4D to practice Filmmaking. So use all your skills and tools to tell the best story to the world. Happy movie making.

j) Write your hearts out!

Writing a blog and making a living off it is a task every one loves to talk about but few have mastered. So, given the fact that it is hard and might as well require hundreds of hours of writing before you can amount to anything, the drill still is to write. This quarantine let go off your inhibitions (trust us, this entire article is the result of that epiphany) and write.

Pour your thoughts on paper, posts, stories, and emails or if you are feeling a tad bit confident, create an account on Medium or our own homegrown TheBloggersclub, with a flat learning curve tailored to its users in this part of the world. TheBloggersclub is still in its nascent stage which makes it all that exciting to become an early adopter.

This blog was jointly written by Mr. Shiv Kandel and Mr. Manish Jung Thapa (The writing, editing, interviews, references, and illustrations took 7 hours 13 minutes. Both of the writers decided to take up this challenge on the third day of the isolation). Our sincere gratitude to Mr. Aakash Karki and Ujjwal Dhanuka (for video) and his team for meaningful support in the process.