By Dikshya Khadgi | YWPLI Alumni
Earlier this year, a fellow Women LEAD Alumni, Siwani and I won a grant through Women LEAD’s Sujata Baskota Changemaker Award Initiative. In May, Siwani and I travelled to Gaur Municipality of Rautahat District to implement our community project The Safe Motherhood Initiative to document the reasons why women marry early and to promote safe motherhood practices.
Before we travelled to Gaur, I did research on the situation of motherhood and early marriage in the area. The research gave me some insight into the situation, but having lived my whole life inside the Kathmandu Valley, I knew what I had read was only a glimpse into the lives of women living in Gaur.
The trip exposed interactions and experiences that were very new to me, even though these experiences occurred on a daily basis in this part of Nepal. Walking down the memory lane, there were various striking incidents which stayed in my mind.
One particular distressing memory was during an interview during which I asked a young woman about her thoughts on early marriage. The young woman said, “All women in our region marry early, get pregnant early. If she is lucky she lives, otherwise, she dies early and her husband has the option to get married again.” I was aghast finding out that the life, dignity and worth of a woman were not valued, and that women were just regarded as child bearing machines. So many women were being robbed of their youth and a lifetime of opportunities.
However, amidst this bleak situation, a highlight of the project was visiting Mayor of the Municipality, Ajay Gupta, to get permission to implement our project. I was pleasantly surprised by the Mayor’s support of our project and willingness to co-operate by referring us to the District Health Officer who could give us information about the initiatives that were taking place to raise awareness of safe motherhood practices within the community. This gave me a lot of hope for the future.
The second wave feminists used ‘Personal is Political’ as a slogan to emphasize the relationship between personal experiences and larger socio-political structures. Through this project, I gained a much better understanding of what this slogan means. As Carol Hanisch says, “One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.”
This project was an eye-opening experience for me, as it made me more aware about the underlying problems faced by women in Gaur and the collective steps that we need to take to overcome them, create an impact, and to honor women’s lives.
I am now more inspired and motivated than ever to fight for the rights of women in Nepal.
Kind Regards,
Dikshya
By Sagoon Bhetwal | YWPLI Alumni
By Manasi Kogekar | Development Coordinator
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