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Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America

Last updated: 29 April 20261100 words

Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit founded in 2010 by Lila K. Chamlagai, a former Bhutanese refugee, providing free medical care, health education, and community support to refugees and marginalised communities, with field operations concentrated in Nepal and a registered office in West Springfield, Massachusetts.

Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America — known on its own materials by the tagline "Delivering Equitable Healthcare Where It's Needed Most" — is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation that provides free medical care, health education, mental health support and community programmes to refugee and marginalised communities, with the bulk of its field operations in Nepal. The organisation is registered with the United States Internal Revenue Service under Employer Identification Number 39-2538152 and maintains its registered office at 287 Main Street, 2nd Floor, West Springfield, Massachusetts.[1][2]

The organisation was founded in 2010 by Lila K. Chamlagai, a former Bhutanese refugee who spent approximately seventeen years in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal before resettling in Springfield, Massachusetts in 2011. Helping Hands operates a separately branded Nepal Chapter, Helping Hands: Health and Human Services, Nepal, based at Janapathpath Chowk, Urlabari-5, Morang, which delivers the organisation's clinical and community programming on the ground.[3][4]

Founding and leadership

According to the organisation's own About page, Helping Hands was founded in 2010 by Chamlagai together with co-founder Bahadur Chaudhary, described as a health assistant with more than thirty years of experience in refugee health in eastern Nepal. Chaudhary continues to manage the organisation's Nepal operations base in Urlabari, Morang.[1][5]

Chamlagai is listed on the team page as Founder and President. He is identified as a Gates Millennium Scholar and a doctoral candidate in Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University's School of Public Health, holding a Master of Public Health and serving on the Community Advisory Board of the Research Program on Children and Adversity at Harvard University and Boston College. The team page notes ethnographic and research fieldwork experience across Nepal, South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and France.[6]

Helping Hands names three further officers on its team page:[6]

  • Pabitra Neupane — Board Treasurer. Born in Bhutan; spent sixteen years in a refugee camp in Nepal, where she taught children, before resettling in Massachusetts in 2008. Currently oversees the Employment Department at Ascentria Care Alliance.
  • Chandra Chamlagai, MS, PA-C — Secretary. A Gates Millennium Scholar and Bay Path University-trained physician assistant practising in family medicine since 2023.
  • Bernard Habimana — Board Member. Holder of a business administration degree from the Université Nationale du Rwanda, with prior roles at Médecins Sans Frontières in Tanzania and Tushirikiane Africa Trust in Nairobi; currently Program Manager for Services for New Americans at Ascentria Community Services.

Mission and programmes

Helping Hands describes its mission as ensuring access to free, high-quality healthcare for vulnerable and marginalised populations through community engagement, medical outreach and research-driven innovation. The organisation's stated values are compassion, integrity and a "community first" approach in which programmes are designed with — rather than for — the communities served.[1]

The programmes page lists four programme areas:[7]

  • Physical and mental health awareness — community-based workshops and outreach events conducted in partnership with local organisations.
  • Initiating primary health posts — establishing local healthcare centres in remote and underserved regions of Nepal that lack routine access to doctors, medicine or emergency services.
  • Research and implementation — applied research on healthcare challenges affecting marginalised communities, paired with on-the-ground programme design.
  • Education for women and children — programming intended to build knowledge, skills and confidence among women and children in marginalised communities.

A flagship project is a primary health clinic at Sanischare, a former Bhutanese refugee camp in eastern Nepal, established in partnership with Health and Education for All (HAEFA), a non-profit led by Dr Ruhul Abid of Brown University, who is identified by Helping Hands as Chamlagai's doctoral supervisor and an active mentor to the organisation. A 2025 update on the news page describes a facility expansion at Sanischare adding maternal-care rooms, pharmacy services and a dedicated mental-health space.[1][8]

Geographic focus

The organisation's primary operational focus is Nepal, where it runs its clinical and community programmes through the Nepal Chapter at Urlabari, Morang. The field-work page also reports past or ongoing research engagements in Brazil — including mental-health research in marginalised communities — and in South Africa, covering HIV/AIDS ethnographic research with Xhosa communities in the Eastern Cape and indigenous-health work with San communities in the Kalahari. The United States office in West Springfield, Massachusetts, serves as the registered headquarters and the base for fundraising, governance and partnerships.[2][5]

Governance and finances

Helping Hands is registered with the United States Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) public charity under EIN 39-2538152. As of April 2026 no Form 990 filing had appeared in the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer database, which is consistent with a comparatively recent IRS recognition; the organisation displays the EIN openly on its website footer and donation pages and routes online donations through the Zeffy platform.[2][9]

The supporters page identifies several institutional sponsors, including Intra-National Welfare and Support of America (Columbus, Ohio), TruCare Connections Inc (Rochester, New York), Medina Home Care (Columbus, Ohio) and Sunshine Home Care, alongside community supporters such as the Vermont Deusi Bhailo Team and Brown University's Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. As of April 2026 the organisation had not published an annual report or audited financial statements on its website.[10]

Connection to the Bhutanese diaspora

Helping Hands is one of a small number of Lhotshampa diaspora-led non-profits applying professional public-health expertise to communities still affected by the Bhutanese refugee crisis. Its founding leadership and several of its officers are themselves former refugees resettled to the United States after 2008 under the third-country resettlement programme. Its programming is directed both at refugees who remained in Nepal after resettlement closed and at the broader population of eastern Nepal among whom they live.[1]

Earlier Helping Hands materials and external profiles described Chamlagai as having been associated with the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh; the organisation's current website does not list a formal affiliation with that group, and Helping Hands describes itself as an independent national non-profit headquartered in Massachusetts.[6]

External links

References

  1. "About." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  2. "Contact." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  3. "Home." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  4. "Helping Hands: Health and Human Services, Nepal."
  5. "Field Work." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  6. "Our Team." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  7. "Programs." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.
  8. "Nepal Chapter Expands Sanischare Refugee Clinic." Helping Hands, 10 June 2025.
  9. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer.
  10. "Supporters." Helping Hands: Health & Human Services, America.

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