I’ve replaced the tears on my father’s aging face with a smile, says expat worker at Qatar Foundation

Four years ago, on a sweltering day, 20-year-old Mina Subedi stepped foot in Qatar. Scared but determined to help her family get out of a never-ending cycle of poverty, she started working as a waitress. It was not easy, but she stayed determined, and today she works as a housekeeping supervisor, subcontracted by a facilities management service provider, at a Qatar Foundation facility.

Hailing from a small town in Nepal, Subedi is her parents’ only daughter. Life was a test every day for her and her two brothers, one younger and one older than her. Her father was a daily-wage earner. “No matter how hard he worked, we could only afford one meal a day. The only choice we had was whether we were going to eat lunch or dinner,” said Subedi. Her father took out a loan against their house in the hopes of improving the family’s financial situation, but unfortunately, he was unable to repay the loan resulting in the bank ordering seizure of their house.