In Nepali, ‘Sancho’ means ‘to heal’.

So as the name suggests, our project is an initiative to showcase the beauty of healing by narrating stories of patients who have overcome their illnesses, and those who are still fighting.

In the process of recovery, especially in a developing country like Nepal, there are many instances where patients and their households are pushed below the poverty line, do not have access to medical insurance and are unable to meet hospital expenses. To make matters worse, it is the same people that face stigma and discrimination to an unimaginable extent due to their disabilities. It is high time that these social and financial hardships are brought to light.

At Sancho, we believe that every wound, every injury, and every patient has a story to share—a story that deserves to be heard. It is in these stories that we find the essence of humanity—the ability to rise above adversity, to find light in the darkest of hours, and to feel empowered by healing.

Within each of our paintings, we invite you to witness stories of triumphs of the human spirit and the unwavering courage that resides within us all.

Healing is an art on its own, we only try to capture it through our work.

Asmi Aryal, Yugeshwor Koirala, Ingshara Limbu, Yugottam Koirala (Left to Right)

Although the idea of Sancho Stories only occurred to us in 2022, our journey began over ten years ago—in our very first week of elementary school. However, it was not our shared educational experience that brought us together. Instead, it was our interest in art and writing (particularly stories) that connected the dots.

Our friendship began within the walls of art class, when we were invited to work together on a short story project in first grade. And before we knew it, whether it was doodling during break time, swapping story ideas during lunch, or collaborating on dozens of school projects, we slowly evolved into a tight-knit circle of four.

With time, our conversations extended beyond art classes and writing desks, forging a friendship where we watched each other grow, celebrated each other’s successes and explored new interests together, including a fondness for helping patients in rural health camps.

And that is how Sancho started out—as our way of experimenting with how we can work at the intersection of health and the arts to address long standing problems in our country’s poor state of medical care.

At the time, we couldn’t recognize how much these experiences would influence our lives. For some of us, it would consolidate a passion for pursuing biomedical research to get to the heart of such issues, and for others, it would fuel an interest in studying the economic and social aspects of these concerns.

Sancho Stories is where our passions come together. We believe that every wound, every injury, and every patient has a story to share—a story that deserves to be heard. So our mission is simple: to use our shared love for art and writing to give a voice to patients enduring pain and hardship, a platform to highlight pressing issues of stigma surrounding diseases and disabilities, and most importantly, to capture the beauty of healing through our narrations.

A conversation between four individuals has now turned into a friendship that is more than a decade old, and as it grows, so will this project. We really hope that you will join us in our endeavor to spark conversations about these neglected problems that disproportionately affect the weak—whether as viewers, supporters, or friends.

Srishti Kumari
Artist

Abhishek Pradhan
Artist

Swastee Regmi
Writer

Suryansha Thapa
Writer