Kathmandu, May 1 -- When Shekhar Dhakal's daughter Pihu was two years old, she was diagnosed with autism. He enrolled her in a nearby school, but the staff struggled to manage her behaviour. She felt isolated. So Dhakal emptied the ground floor of his home in Banasthali and hired a teacher to teach her.

Within weeks, four or five other parents had knocked on his door, asking if their children could join. He said yes. But the setup quickly proved difficult-children began running out into the street, and a single teacher working out of the ground floor of a house was no longer enough. So in 2019, Dhakal and his wife formalised what had begun as a father's desperation into Nepal Autism School - one of a small number of institutions that hav...