Social Entrepreneurship Event

Written by Menuka, 2012 Fellow.

On 26^th April, I attended an event about Social Entrepreneurship organized by the Nepal Young Entrepreneurs’ Forum (NYEF) where Keran Kerrigan, the president and CEO of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, talked about entrepreneurship, the traits an entrepreneur needs to have and the challenges we might face if we want to be an entrepreneur.

The event started with a short description of NYEF, which is instituted by FNCCI (Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry). NYEF promotes an entrepreneurial mindset for women and effective and much needed networking for young entrepreneurs. It gives opportunities for young people to come up with an idea and helps them grow as entrepreneurs.

Keran Kerrigan shared her own personal experiences and talked about how we can make Social Entrepreneurship a good career option. Nowadays, everybody wants to get a job, but only few people are actually creating jobs. Social Entrepreneurs are the job creators; they are the trendsetters who dare to think outside of the box. It was a very interactive session, and many people got the chance to ask questions to Karen Kerrigan. When I asked her why Social Entrepreneurship is not pursued as a career in Nepal and here we see few Social Entrepreneurs, she said that it’s the lack of exposure in the Nepalese market. Though some of us might be familiar with this term Social Entrepreneur, there are still a lot of people who don’t know what it is. We need to raise awareness of social entrepreneurship in Nepal and show that it works. I felt what she said was true. People in Nepal are not familiar with this term so we should promote it more.

After the event, I got a chance to interact with other young women who were passionate to start their own venture and some of them were already entrepreneurs!

 

Women LEAD To Receive $13,000 grant from Georgetown University Social Innovation Public Service Fund

 

Women LEAD is excited to announce that we will be receiving a $13,000 grant from Georgetown University Social Innovation Public Service Fund, our biggest grant to date! The $13,000 includes a $5,000 matching grant campaign that was launched last week. The Social Innovation Public Service Fund, a student-led program at Georgetown University, supports innovative ventures led by alumni and students that have a social impact and serve the public good.

Women LEAD co-founders Claire Charamnac and Claire Naylor graduated from Georgetown in 2011. Grants from the SIPS Fund are made possible by an endowment fund at Georgetown University provided by Georgetown students.

The grant will go towards supporting Women LEAD’s programs in Nepal, which empower more than 200 high school students every year to become leaders in their schools and communities. The SIPS Fund grant will enable Women LEAD to provide critical leadership, entrepreneurship and advocacy training to promising young women leaders in Kathmandu.

Menuka leads a session on time management!

Written by Menuka, 2012 Fellow.

Women LEAD in corporation with Karkhana ran a Women in Technology workshop where female Bachelor students were given training on robotics and leadership. During the workshop, I ran a Time Management session with 7 of the girls. The girls thought that they were not good in time management and wanted me to give them some tips regarding it. During the session, I gave them tips about time management and led a discussion.

No one can give you the top 10 tips to improve time management that will enable you to be perfect at managing your time. It’s something that comes with time. People tend to hide their problems; in the session we all talked about our problems with managing our time. I asked different questions to them about their daily life and told them to rate how often they manage their time well. Some of them said that they always meet deadlines whereas other people said that they always ask for extensions. Instead of me giving them suggestions, I asked one of the girls how she meets her deadlines, so she could share some suggestions with the other girls too. Most of the girls said that they are lazy about managing their time for studying and always procrastinate on their assignments. In order to overcome their procrastination, I told them that they should always think about the bad results that might happen if they don’t complete their assignments. The session went well and the girls felt motivated and better equipped afterwards to manage their time.

“Girl Rising” Documentary Screening

Written by Anna Silk, Women LEAD Team Member in LA.

Walking into a screening of the newly released documentary “Girl Rising”, the excitement of the audience was palpable. People were perched on the edge of their seats, chattering about their expectations for the film. As the lights dimmed and the crowd hushed, I gazed at the screen and was soon taken on a journey, an hour and a half of poignant footage chronicling 9 girls’ lives in 9 different nations around the world. It was an amazing compilation of stories and tales that struck the bitter chord of reality with touching narratives of defying adversity and the fight for basic freedoms. Beginning with the story of Wadley, a young girl living in the reeling aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and ending with Amina, a young Afghani bride, the film’s message was achingly clear: while the girls depicted in the documentary are strong and heroic, role models of adversity, there are still millions of girls out there who need help.

            What struck me most about the film was the optimism these girls possessed, despite their situations. For me, going to school is something taken for granted, dreaded some days. I do not think twice about being allowed to go outside by myself, being allowed the freedom to wear whatever I want, or having the liberty to do participate in extracurricular activities. It was amazing to see how genuinely happy the thought of new pencils and pressed school skirts made these girls, how through all the obstacles thrown at them in their lives they found some piece of happiness and appreciation to cling to and help them deal with the travails of a hateful master or an early marriage. Some of the girls in the film found outlets in art, such as Ruksana of India, who loved to paint and draw. Others found hope in their family, such as Azmera from Ethiopia, whose brother saved her from an arranged marriage.

             I appreciated the balance of the film, how it would oscillate between stories of sweet success and stories of measured acceptance. The transition between each story included a short interlude of facts about girls’ rights and education worldwide, statistics about child marriage, rape, inequality and workload leading into the stories. I have heard all these facts before, thrown at me in speeches, lectures, and pamphlets. But to see the stories behind these facts, to see the true reality of them in the film, was moving. This film has so much power in it. The art of the visual really brings the obstacles and limitations that girls in the world face on a daily basis to life, and the realization of the horror and universality of these hurdles acts as a jumpstart, an inspiration to help. Coming out of the screening, I felt the audience feel driven to go out and help these girls; the film had a great impact on them.  The film was narrated by celebrities such as Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep. By giving the film several voices, it created a greater unifying significance. The audience understood that the fight for girls’ rights on an international level is not an exclusive cause for women to support, but, rather, one that men can and should support as well.

One of my favorite stories of the film was of Suma, a girl from Nepal. She became a forced servant at a young age, forced to clean the dishes and rooms of a home she did not belong in. She was handed off from master to master until she was finally given her freedom after a woman from an organization that worked toward the liberty of forced laborers convinced Suma’s master to let her go. Suma used her love of song to help support the independence of other forced labor servants, helping those just like her reach liberty.

Overall, the film was a great inspiration and I highly recommend that everyone see it! The film’s website is: http://girlrising.com/#66-million-girls.

 

 

Spotlight on Rajina!

This Friday we’d like to congratulate Rajina, 2010 LEADer and 2011 Intern, for securing an internship at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore! CIS works on digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices in the field of Internet and Society.

CIS has a team of lawyers and social scientists who suggest and submit policies to the Indian government. They are currently working on a policy for DNA tests that would ensure better regulation.

As a science student, Rajina will perform literary research for them, simplify the technical terms used in their bills, and interview the labs about how they work and if they are up to the mark. She will also be comparing the DNA regulation bills in India to the ones in Canada, the US and Australia.

Good job Rajina! We’re so proud of you.

Young Women Entrepreneurs Summit

Written by Menuka, 2011 LEADer and 2012 Fellow.

Last Saturday on 30^th March, I attended a Young Women Entrepreneurs Summit as part of my fellowship with Women LEAD along with three other LEADers: Sujata, Aishwarya and Purnima. This was the very first summit where female entrepreneurs from all around Nepal came to share their ideas and learn from others’ experiences. I went there hoping to know the scale of women’s entrepreneurship in Nepal and get inspired by the speakers! There were people from all ages and different backgrounds: from women in restaurant and jewelry start-ups to MBA students to successful entrepreneurs. The key-note speaker, Allision Mooney, who is considered to be one of the best speakers in Australia, went through four personality types: playful, powerful, peaceful and precise, and how each is valuable and important to entrepreneurship. During the breaks I was able to talk with few of the women present and hear their stories. Most of them were above 30 but the way they talked and their passion for their work really impressed me.

During the “Inspiration Session”, I got a chance to hear the success story of Ms. Shyam Badan Shrestha, famous for her dolls and Ms. Hajuri Bista, who is the pickle queen. They both shared how they started their business and how their personal life was before they started their work. For them, their work means more than anything and now they are in their 40’s but then they still have that zeal to broaden their business. As a Nepalese woman, we think that our life changes after marriage, like after marriage all you need to do is take care of your family and do house hold chores. But in the work life balance session, Ms. Biina Rana and Ms. Seema Golchha stated that even though they are wives, mothers and daughters-in-law, they are also working women. They talked about how hard it was for them to convince their in laws to let them work but by crossing all the barriers they lived their dreams and now they are happily balancing their life.

When I was hearing the speeches of those women, I also felt like becoming one of them but then I thought “well… who is going to pay for my venture?” The next session on access to finance and business policy helped to solve my queries. Though I knew that there are lots of banks in Nepal, I never knew that they actually provide finance to start up new businesses and grow established businesses. And the fact that they supported and encouraged more women’s business and were ready to invest in their business boosted my confidence. The whole summit was really interactive and totally refreshing for me.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SUMMIT

● “After going to the summit I realized that in Nepal also there are women entrepreneurs. The way the guest speakers presented their work and experience was commendable- they taught me that it requires patience and hard work to reach the top and now I appreciate my talent.”- Sujata Khatiwada

● “In books there are things written about gender equality, but I’ve never felt that equality is present Nepal. I used to think that in Nepal it’s just the men who run businesses but I was wrong. In the summit, I was able to see and hear about the achievements of women entrepreneurs. Though I used to lack the confidence to start my own business, now I know if given the required resources women can start their own businesses”- Aishwarya Shrestha

Interview with Inspiring Young Woman Leader Claire Brito

Claire Brito is 15 years old, from Houston TX, and a freshman at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts.  At school, she’s involved in Model United Nations, community service and tennis.  Last year she had the opportunity to lead a service project for a small community in Guayaquil, Ecuador through the SEA-El Carmen program.

Why did you decide to become involved in this service project in Ecuador?

My dad is originally from Quito, Ecuador and has been traveling back and forth since he was about my age.  In the 6th grade, my dad asked me if I wanted to go visit this school in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He thought it would be a good opportunity for me to see a school that was different from mine.

I was in Ecuador for two weeks, and took a smaller trip to a small community outside the city of Guayaquil, attending classes, playing with the kids and hanging out with the families.

After I left, I stayed in correspondence with the school’s director because I wanted to remain involved with the project. I talked with kids in my school about how they could help set up a service project for the kids as well as a pen pal program.

By the time I was in the 8th grade I wanted to do something on my own for the school. Using the idea of “stockings for students”, I recruited a 5th grade class to partner with the 186 students in the school in Guayaquil to create and ship out Christmas stockings to them.

All the students in the school in Guayaquil were so happy to get their own personal stocking! Each kid in the 5th grade class in my school was responsible for present ideas and collecting the toys. They decorated each stocking with the student’s name on it, and we sent it out to Ecuador. The project was a huge success, and each of the 186 students opened their own personal christmas stocking stuffed with goodies. We got to watch it over Skype! (You can see a video of this here).

Do girls in Guayaquil have equal access to education?

Most of the children in the community are not educated past the middle school level, with most of the girls dropping out even before then. As a high school student, this opened my eyes to the stark contrasts between my life and theirs. Where I live, it is typical for a girl my age to be preparing and thinking ahead for college and beyond. There is constant pressure for us girls to maintain competitive grades and a stellar resume: the girls I live and work with are very achievement-oriented.  These girls have a very different reality.

I remember going to the classroom and sitting with the girls there – I had a pen pal my age that I was talking to, Carmen. They were so sweet, and many were very excited to talk to me, but were significantly quieter than the boys in their class.

Recruiting teachers in a rural area is a struggle for the school, so the mothers in the village would step up to help run the school. Many mothers played a vital role in their child’s education by working as cooks, teachers, and administrative volunteers.  Most of the people who work in and for the school are women. The person who started and runs the school is a woman!

Which woman in your life has inspired you the most?

One woman who is inspiring to me currently is my dorm proctor. She loves to travel and has worked with kids in other countries during her past summers.  She encourages me not to quit my work with the school in Guayaquil despite the challenges of school.

Katie Davis also inspires me. She’s a girl who, after high school, started a ministry in Uganda. I read her book and loved it. I’ve read it twice! She’s a huge role model.

Storytelling Workshop: “Minu’s Little Brother”, by Shrinkhala

Minu was a girl born in a very happy and prosperous family in Kathmandu. From outside it actually looked like a perfect family. The children had received a very good education and their needs were being fulfilled by their parents even though they had had to take out a few loans. Minu was very close with her sisters and her younger brother, Karan. Just like best friends they used to share everything. But Karan was a bit different. There may be no one else in the world like him. Sometimes he would be so good but sometimes he would get out of control. When Karan was in a good mood, he would always be chatting and laughing with his sisters. When he was in a bad mood for no good reason he would make his sisters cry.

It was Sunday, Minu’s birthday. She was very happy that day because she was turning 15 years old. That day she had a holiday. Karan, who was just 20 months younger than her, was also at home. No one else was around. Minu and Karan were watching T.V. Minu asked Karan to change the channel but he refused, saying,

“No, I don’t want to watch any other channel.”                                

“Oh please. I just want to watch a film. Today’s my birthday at least you could do me a favor today.” Minu replied. They started arguing and Karan got so angry that he hit his sister and shouted “Just get out of the room”.

Minu burst into tears. It was not the first time her brother had been mean to her.  Previously they had only had arguments but that day he had beaten her. She cried so much that she was sick the next day. She always wondered,

“What bad deed have I done in my past life to have to suffer in this way? It must be that I have done good deeds as well because I was born into a good family but I may have done something wrong too.”

 It was some days later when Minu went to Karan’s room. Karan was using the laptop.

“Karan, could you let me use the laptop? I have to submit my project work.” Minu asked.

Karan looked annoyed, “So what? I am using the internet. Do your work later.”

“But I have to do it now. Oh please, please, please, please.”

Since Minu had to use the laptop, she bribed her brother, giving him Rs.50.

“Ok,” Karan said grudgingly, “You can use the laptop for 6 hours. But after that you have to leave. I am sure you will finish it by then.”

“What is wrong with Karan” Minu muttered, talking to herself, “When he was small he used to ask for chocolate for Rs.1, Rs.2 but now even Rs. 50 is not enough for him.”

As time went by Karan got more and more demanding and selfish. If he did not get what he wanted, he would go wild with anger.

He even used to use his hand on his mother. At times, in rage she used to wish that she had never given birth to him. In fact, she had always wanted a son. She kept having children until her son came along, the youngest of four daughters.  Who would have thought that later on, her son would be the one to give her so much misery.

Days went by but nothing was done about Karan. He was helpful at times but he also caused a lot of trouble. He enjoyed irritating Minu and his eldest sister the most. At home, everyone was fed up of him.

His parents could not control him at all. The time came for the two eldest sisters to get married and the other sister went abroad for further study.

After they left things were very different. Karan acted as though he was the king of the house. Minu knew that if she did everything Karan ordered her to do, it would only make him dependant. She refused to do the small things which Karan could do for himself.

Then one day, on a stormy night, Karan rode his bike to his friend’s house. On his way back he got into an accident and was seriously injured. So, he was rushed to the hospital.

At home, the phone rang: tring tring!

Dad: Hello!

A girl: Is this Karan’s home?

Dad: Yes, I am his father.

Girl: I’m speaking from Bir Hospital. Karan has been injured in an accident. Please come to the hospital right away.

(Hangs up the phone)

After awhile in the hospital…

Mom had been very worried, “Karan, I told you not to ride your bike in full speed on such a stormy night. Look, what has happened to you. When will you ever listen to us?”

 “Don’t worry mom, he will be alright.” Minu said, comforting her mother.

The doctor said that he would be discharged the next day. But he needs a lot of rest, at least for 2 months.

After Karan went home he was taken really good care of by everyone. His sisters came to visit him frequently, so he got better very quickly.

Slowly Karan came to realise his duties and responsibilities towards his family. Before he was such a stubborn child and used to give so much trouble to his family but still their love towards him had not diminished at all. When he got into the accident, his family members were the ones who supported him the most, not his friends.

Karan had a lot of time to think about how he treated his family while he was recovering. He felt very guilty for all he had done. From then on he became a very good and obedient son and also a sweet and caring brother. He never spoke cruely to his sisters again.

Minu was also so happy that the devil inside her brother had finally left him.

 

 

 

Meet Us On The Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week

 

We’re proud to be partnering with Meet Us On The Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week to host events raising awareness of street harassment in Kathmandu.

We’re holding a contest until April 11th to celebrate the most beautiful, compelling stories using www.Prezi.com that speak to the issue of street harassment in the Kathmandu Valley.

The deadline for submission is APRIL 11th, 11:59pm Kathmandu time.

For more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/547240125297613/

Valentine’s Day at Women LEAD

Written by Menuka, our 2012 Fellow.

Who says Valentine’s Day is just for lovers? For us, it’s about expressing our love for our near and dear ones and a celebration of who we are. On 14^th February, Women LEAD organized an event for all our participants to get together and celebrate being girls! On a sunny day on February, most of our participants showed up to make cards for our loved ones with glitters and colors: girls were painting their nails, taking photos and eating cup cakes. We even watched the movie Miss Congeniality, which was super fun. It was also a special day for One Billion Rising, the movement to end violence against women, so we did a mural where we painted hearts and wrote what we each thought was the best part about being a girl. The room was filled with love: we exchanged cards and gave each other roses. It was a wonderful valentine filled with smiles and love!