Girls Wanna Run! Training Nepal's Generation Next!

After the successful completion of the 2021 Young Women's Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI), the 5th interaction of YWPLI kicked off with the Politics Institute on 3rd September. Women LEAD’s Young Women’s Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI), an 11-month long course, aims to equip politically ambitious young Nepali women (18-25 years old) with the fundamental knowledge, communication, and analytical skills, professional experience, and networks they need to engage in Nepal’s politics in a meaningful way.

In 2020, owning to the pandemic, we switched gears and adopted an online modality for our programs.  Almost all of the aspects of our course were conducted virtually in the last two iterations of YWPLI. Fortunately, with the ease of the COVID-19 surge, this year we could hold the recruitment and Politics Institute physically. We received over 105 applications from young women from all over the country; out of which 16 were selected as our 2022 YWPLI Fellows.

Politics Institute (PI) includes intense skills-building workshops. The curriculum includes (and is not limited to) topics like Gender and the Constitution, Rights, and Responsibilities as a Citizen, Elections and Electoral Law, and Federalism. Distinguished leaders/ parliamentarians (especially women) are invited as guest speakers during the two-week-long Politics Institute. This module ensures that the participants understand the overall Politics of Nepal, Nepali political history, women in politics, and leadership.

During the 2022 PI, Fellows participated in sessions such as Political Ideology, After COVID,  ongoing War, World /National Politics, Youth in Politics, etc. Fellows also engaged in discussions such as the statute of age bar/ limitation and its impact on women or survivors followed by a specific case discussion.  Ms. Hima’s session on street campaigning helped fellows learn more about the importance of such campaigns in bringing the accused individual into the periphery of justice and serving survivors justice. Mr. Subin, an advocate for the citizenship bill’s session on gender space in the constitution, citizenship, and statute of limitation on sexual violence highlighted the issues within the citizenship bill.  

Similarly, Another crucial discussion during the 2022 PI to aware fellows of the importance of having more women in policy-making for a better society was led by Honourable MP Bimala, a member of the National Assembly. Ms. Hima led a discussion with the fellows on independent political candidacy and its effect on Nepali politics followed by a panel discussion with women leaders (Ms. Manushi, Ms. Ranju, and Ms.Karma) to discuss where women leaders stand as candidates in the upcoming elections and the overall women's candidacy in elections and need to have more women in positions. 

Stay tuned for more updates from our 2022 YWPLI in the upcoming months!

Links:

• Check out Women LEAD's updated website.

In May, our 2021 YWPLI Fellows successfully completed the week-long intensive Advocacy Week as a part of the 11-month-long Young Women’s Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI).  The week-long Advocacy Week consisted of training sessions (and not limited to) on the basics of Advocacy, current affairs, budget planning, and creating power messages.  After the intensive training, the fellows were given a budget of Nrs.10,000 to pitch their advocacy project in groups of 4-5 and had to complete the project within the next 10 days.

The theme of this year’s Advocacy Week and Project Implementation was “Election” and so 4 different groups of fellows pitched their projects. The first group of fellows pitched a project titled “Basics of Election in Federal Nepal”. They organized a day-long training for the students of Bachelors in Social Work about the basics of Election and the Federal state of Government.  Along with theoretical knowledge, the team members also gave the students with a practical demo of casting a vote in a ballot box.

The second group of fellows pitched their project, “Dialogue Dabali”, which aimed to create a platform for young and enthusiastic minds, primarily focusing The fellows reached out to 3 politically active individuals; some of whom were a part of the recent election in Nepal and interviewed them. In the long term, this group focuses on creating a circle to voice together important social issues via panel discussions, interactive classes, and a forum to share experiences and stories with an end goal to ignite the thoughts for change.

The third group of fellows pitched their project in the title “ /Electoral Literacy for all”. The project revolved around Election literacy among young women; particularly first-time voters.  This group organized a one-day training along with a focused group discussion for the first-time voters.  The anticipated outcome of this project is that the targeted audience will be able to make an informed decision in the coming election.

The fourth group of fellows pitched their project titled “Exercising Right to Vote”, where the team members conducted a 10-day-long door-to-door program, where they directly interacted with people and filled out the questionnaire regarding the voter card and collected the data. After the implementation of the advocacy projects, the fellows presented their findings, challenges, and learnings to the Women LEAD family on 11th June 2022.

Our 19 2021 YWPLI Fellows have completed almost all the modules of the program over the course of 11 months and are all set to graduate in July and become our alumni.

Links:

• Check out Women LEAD's website.