KATHMANDU: The New York State Assembly has issued a formal proclamation honouring Urgen Sherpa, a Nepali community organiser, Buddhist scholar and advocate, for more than two decades of service to Himalayan and immigrant communities in New York City.

The proclamation was issued by State Assembly members Steven Raga and Sarahana Shrestha, recognising Urgen's long record of community leadership, humanitarian work and civic advocacy spanning from his early years in Loding, Nepal to his current work at the heart of New York City's immigrant small business sector.

Urgen currently serves as Small Business Manager at Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a member of the New York City AAPI Small Business Task Force and a member of the Rotary Club of New York Queens. In November 2025, he was appointed to Mayor Mamdani's transition team, where he advised on small business policy matters.

His path to community leadership began unusually early. At the age of thirteen, he co-founded the Peekey Sporting Club in his hometown of Loding, Nepal, which raised funds to repair a school playground damaged by landslides and helped introduce indigenous arts and culture into school programmes. Before leaving for the United States, he also co-founded the Nepal Sherpa Students Association — the first indigenous student association in Nepal — which created scholarship funds for Sherpa students entering higher education. His language advocacy during the same period led to what is believed to be the first ever news broadcast in the Sherpa language in Nepal.

In New York, Urgen served two consecutive terms as President of the United Sherpa Association, during which he built what has been described as an award-winning humanitarian support system for low-income Himalayan communities. The system combined practical support — affordable housing assistance, food aid and student scholarships — with culturally grounded programming including language, music, dance and meditation classes for children. He also led a successful campaign for Nepali language access in New York City services, resulting in the IDNYC card being made available in Nepali. During his presidency, his team acquired 61 acres of land in upstate New York for a proposed monument for world peace and ecological sustainability.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Urgen's volunteer network delivered more than 1,100 care packages to immunocompromised community members, distributed over 40,000 food boxes through a community pantry, and provided emergency cash assistance to international students in need. In 2020, he also co-created an interfaith food coalition to deliver groceries to communities and houses of worship beyond the Himalayan community.

Urgen is credited as the first organiser in the Himalayan community to build a coordinated political base within New York City politics. That base contributed to the passage of legislation capping new for-hire vehicle licences in 2018, the Our City Our Vote legislation in 2021, and an alternate side parking exemption for the Losar Festival in February 2025. He also spearheaded the initiative to co-name 75th Street in Elmhurst — between Broadway and Woodside Avenue — as Tenzing Norgay Sherpa Way, in recognition of the Nepali community's presence in the city.

As a founding member of the Zangdokpalri Foundation for Peace, he helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide food, shelter and education to monks and nuns in remote villages in Arunachal Pradesh, India. He has also served as Senior Vice President of the Himalayan Buddhist Community of Nepal in New York, coordinating Buddhist festivals, peace rallies and religious events across the city.

In his current role at Chhaya, Urgen has helped small business owners access millions of dollars in grants and loans, and has been recognised for engaging more merchants in the Citywide Merchant Organizing Project than any other community organiser in the city.

The State Assembly proclamation describes his career as one defined by the practical application of Buddhist values — a decades-long effort to uplift marginalised communities that began in the hills of eastern Nepal and has since touched thousands of lives across two countries.