Why this matters · यो किन महत्त्वपूर्ण छ

Your community is here.
The information system isn't.

Nepali New Yorkers in Queens are educated, working, and civically engaged. But the systems that carry news, government information, and civic resources were built for someone else. NepYork exists in that gap.

नेपाली न्यू योर्कवासीहरू शिक्षित, मेहनती र नागरिक रूपमा सक्रिय छन् — तर सूचना प्रणाली उनीहरूको लागि बनाइएको थिएन।

87% of Nepali New Yorkers live in Queens — one of the most concentrated diaspora communities in the city. Asian American Federation, 2019
~50% of foreign-born Nepali Americans are not English proficient — meaning mainstream news doesn't reach them. Pew Research Center
Bottom 9% of all US counties for news and information access. Queens ranks 2,145 out of 3,144 counties for civic health. Listening Post Collective Civic Index, 2026
The information gap · सूचनाको खाडल

What happens when a community can't get the information it needs?

Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Woodside, and Flushing are home to one of the fastest-growing South Asian communities in the United States. The Nepali population in New York City tripled between 2010 and 2019. Fifty-one percent of Nepali Americans hold college degrees. They run businesses, pay taxes, raise children in city schools, and vote in local elections.

And yet when a landlord files for eviction, when a city benefit changes, when a public health crisis hits, when immigration policy shifts — the information that would let someone act rarely arrives in time, in the right language, or through a trusted source. The civic information system was designed for a different city than the one that exists today.

"Language is not just a barrier. It is the primary filter through which civic life either reaches you or doesn't."

Kishor Panthi, Founder, NepYork
Housing
Housing pressure without a safety net
Renter rates across core Nepali zip codes run from 65 to 82 percent, in housing stock that averages 85 years old. Tenants who don't know their rights — in English — lose them.
Civic access
Civic infrastructure in one language
City agency notices, school communications, health alerts, and voting information arrive in English. Nearly half of Nepali adults in Queens can't fully parse them without help.
Misinformation
Misinformation fills the vacuum
When trusted journalism doesn't reach a community, WhatsApp rumors, social media misinformation, and word-of-mouth fill the gap. The cost is real: in health, in legal decisions, in civic participation.
What the numbers show · तथ्याङ्कले के देखाउँछ

Queens is the most linguistically isolated county in America. Nepali New Yorkers are at the center of that.

The Listening Post Collective's 2026 Civic Information Index ranks Queens County in the bottom one percent of all US counties for non-English speakers at home — the most linguistically diverse county in the nation, with the least infrastructure to serve that diversity. These are not abstract statistics. They describe the daily experience of tens of thousands of people.

43%
Limited English proficiency in Queens Nepali community
Nearly half of Nepali adults in Queens have limited English proficiency — making English-only news, legal notices, and government communications effectively inaccessible.
Asian American Federation →
1.8M
NYC residents who speak little or no English
The Nepali community is part of a much larger crisis. 1.8 million New Yorkers are functionally excluded from the information systems that govern city life.
NYC Mayor's Office →
51%
of Nepali Americans hold college degrees
This community is not uninformed because of lack of education. It is underserved because the infrastructure built for civic life was not built for them.
NepYork, 2026 →
14 yrs
of community journalism by NepYork and its partners
NepYork and its Nepali-language partner KasoKas have spent 14 years building the trust and community relationships that make journalism in this community possible.
NepYork →
NepYork's role · NepYork को भूमिका

NepYork is the bridge between a city's information system and a community it wasn't built to serve.

Founded by Kishor Panthi — a State Department-accredited journalist and SPJ Diversity Fellow with 14 years of community journalism — NepYork is the only English-language nonprofit newsroom in New York City dedicated to the Nepali and Himalayan diaspora. It is a member of URL Media, the national network of community-owned newsrooms led by Mitra Kalita, and a Press Forward grant recipient.

NepYork does not parachute into this community. It is this community. Every story it publishes is built from relationships, not sources. Every word it writes is a translation act — not just between languages, but between the bureaucratic world of city government and the lived reality of immigrant families trying to navigate it.

1
Community-centered journalism
NepYork covers the issues that matter most to Nepali New Yorkers — immigration, housing, health, workers' rights, small business, and education — in plain English that anyone can understand.
2
Trust-based distribution
NepYork reaches its audience through WhatsApp groups, community organizations, temples, and the personal relationships its journalists have built over more than a decade. Reach follows trust.
3
Ecosystem partnerships
NepYork works alongside organizations like Adhikaar, the Ridgewood Nepalese Society, the Minority Empowerment Network, and the Greater NY Nepali Chamber of Commerce to extend reach and deepen coverage.
4
Listening before publishing
The Listening Post initiative — a bilingual community survey and information needs assessment — is how NepYork ensures its coverage reflects what the community actually needs to know, not what journalists assume they need.
The Listening Post · श्रवण केन्द्र

We are asking the community what it needs. The answers will shape what we report.

This summer, NepYork is conducting a formal community information needs assessment — the first of its kind for the Nepali and Himalayan diaspora in New York City. The Listening Post is a bilingual English-Nepali survey asking community members about how they get news, what information gaps affect their daily lives, what they trust, and what they want more of.

The findings will be shared publicly in August 2026 at a community event. They will directly inform NepYork's editorial priorities for the year ahead. They will also be shared with city agencies, public health partners, and funders as documented evidence of where the information system is failing this community — and what it would take to fix it.

This is not a research project for its own sake. Every response to the survey is a vote for what NepYork covers next.

The future of community media belongs to organizations that listen first, engage deeply, and build trust through storytelling.

NepYork Listening Post · Summer 2026
Your voice shapes what we report next.
Take the five-minute bilingual survey. Tell us what your community needs to know.
Take the survey →