I like to believe that most of us know how important it is to give women the ability to practice free speech, empower them by giving them the responsibility to make their own decisions and have financial independence. More than the urban areas, it is in rural Nepal where women still need to be shown what women can do. Efforts by various agencies are at work but more importantly, more efforts need to come from the working Nepali women who live in cities – whether it’s through projects, field visits or personal visits, there is a huge need for independent working Nepali women to go to the unknown villages and become an example to communities along the way to show what a woman can also do.
During my two field visits under a programme and a CSR visit for a private company in Nepal, only during the CSR visit was there a female representative. The CSR visit was to a city in the Terai but the two field visits were to smaller villages in the mid-west and far-west where I believe having women journalists or writers accompanying us would have made a difference to the people we met and the young children. Our initial ideas and impression makes a huge difference. Children, women and men in rural communities need to come across women with experience, skills and power.
On that note – watch TIKA’S SHORT STORY via Oxfam.
