By Udai Gurung – Colchester UK
For many of Colchester’s senior Nepali residents, the chance to sit in a room on a Saturday afternoon and simply understand what a doctor was telling them was, in itself, asmall miracle.
Most of them were born in Nepal in the early 1950s, into a world with little room for schoolbooks. Their childhoods were spent cutting grass before sunrise, tending the family’s cows, buffaloes, sheep and goats through dense jungle, and walking miles simply to fetch water. They worked their parents’ small farms because the family needed their hands, not because anyone was asking what they wanted to become. For these “Old and Bold” members of the Colchester Nepalese Society (CNS), an education was a dream that quietly slipped away and never returned – and English, decades later in a new country, remained a language that kept much of modern life, including their own healthcare, just out of reach.
On Saturday, 5 September 2026, that barrier came down for an afternoon.
Gathered in Studios 1 and 2 at Firstsite, more than sixty CNS members – many in their seventies, eighties and beyond –listened as doctors from the Nepalese Doctors Association UK (NDA UK) spoke to them not through an interpreter, not in careful simplified English, but in their own mother tongue. Dr Arati Thapa, General Practitioner and Chair and Trustee of NDA UK, opened proceedings with a virtual presentation on cervical cancer, walking the room through symptoms, screening and early warning signs with a clarity that needed no translation. She was followed by Dr Kamal Aryal, Specialist Surgeon in Bowel Cancer and Affiliate Consultant Bowel Surgeon and Associate Professor at the University of East Anglia, and a former Chair of NDA UK himself, who spoke on bowel cancer alongside his colleague Dr Gokul Bhatta, Specialty Trainee in Surgery. Between them, the two doctors explained not just what to watch for, but what could be done about it – early detection, treatment, and where to turn for help – in language every person in the room could follow without a flicker of hesitation.
After a break for tea, the afternoon turned to a subject rarely given its due: dental health. Arranged at short notice by Dr Ravi Pant, NDA Treasurer, Dr Anuska Dawadi rose to the occasion with warmth and practicality, urging everyone to brush twice daily, to use the right toothbrush for their needs, and – crucially – never to sit on a problem, but to see an NHS dentist as soon as one appeared.
It was not the first time CNS had welcomed NDA UK into Colchester; doctors and nurses from the association first visited the community back in 2019. But there was something particular about this second gathering. Watching members who had never had the chance to sit in a classroom lean forward, nodding as symptoms and treatments were explained in the words they grew up with, was a reminder of exactly why these sessions matter – and why they cannot be a one-off.
Refreshments and a shared meal, prepared with care by Food Coordinator Dambar Limbu, Assistant Food Coordinator Kul Prasad Limbu, Jas Kumari Gurung and their team, brought the afternoon to a close in the way these gatherings always should: with food, laughter, and the quiet satisfaction of a room full of people who had been truly seen.
CNS is already looking ahead. On Saturday, 23 January 2027, the doctors of NDA UK will return to Colchester for a further session covering lung cancer, skin cancer, brain tumours and oral cancer, alongside a hands-on segment offering blood pressure checks, blood sugar testing, and practical guidance on making the most of GP services – once again, entirely in Nepali.
To the doctors who gave their Saturday, and their expertise, so freely: thank you. For the Old and Bold of Colchester, you didn’t just deliver a health talk. You gave them, if only for an afternoon, the classroom they never had.
Udaibahadur Gurung MBE, Chair/Trustee, Colchester Nepalese Society (CNS)
