Postcard from... Kathmandu

From his school on a hill in Nepal’s capital, Khem Lakai looked down on the messy politics of Kathmandu and wonders when its politicians will stop bickering and start dealing with the country’s dire economy.

“We send all our young people to labour in menial jobs in the Middle East,” he said. “If only we could train those people, they could have a future.”

Almost single-handedly, Mr Lakai, 40, is trying to change that. His award-winning Global Academy of Tourism and Hospitality opened in 2007, a year after the end of the devastating civil war that claimed 13,000 lives, and now trains 350 budding chefs and hoteliers a year.

His story is an inspiration – growing up in a tiny village in northern Nepal that only got its first electricity in 2004, he went to college in Kathmandu, taught himself English in the British Council library and won a place at a Swiss hospitality college.

Later, working for the Sheraton in Bahrain, he met hundreds of young Nepalese desperate for work but lacking skills, and decided to return home. He has little faith that last week’s election – won by the centrist Nepali Congress – will change anything. Parliament still has to write a constitution.

“Without skills for the young, it means nothing,” he warned.