The day after the earthquake in Nepal, Lila Lamini, who lives in Woodside, Queens, gathered a dozen of her friends, all of them fellow domestic workers in New York and all from the same rural area of Nepal. The quake had destroyed their villages, blocked access to the region, and killed and injured residents.
“My friends said, ‘I have no idea what to do,’ ” she recalled. “I said: ‘Come on, guys. Everybody, think.’ ”
The women started making calls — to anyone who might have some influence in their homeland or might know of someone who did. A Nepali insurance agent Ms. Lamini knew in New Jersey soon put her in touch with a well-connected politician in Kathmandu who, within an hour of their phone conversation, had dispatched two helicopters to the women’s villages in the Sindhupalchok region to deliver medical supplies and evacuate the wounded.
Ms. Lamini, 41, was glad for one thing: “I helped my country,” she said. Read the complete story from the New York Times.