After successfully completing the Politics Institute of the 5th iteration of the Young Women's Political Leadership Insitute (YWPLI), our amazing 2022 YWPLI fellows are busy with the internship module. As a part of the 11-month-long course, our YWPLI Fellows intern at various governmental agencies like municipalities, parliamentarian offices, and/or ministries for 100+ hours per month under different women leaders. This experiential learning opportunity helps expand fellow’s understanding of these women leaders' leadership styles and working ecosystem.
Hear from two of our 2022 YWPLI Fellows regarding their internship experiences -
1.Shristi, 2022 YWPLI Fellow - Interned for an election campaign of an independent woman candidate for Parliament Election (Parliament & provincial election 2079 BS)
What has been the biggest learning from the internship? How do you think it will help in your professional life?
"Firstly, I understood that there should be proper planning during the political campaign to avoid flaws & mistakes as much as possible. Secondly, I saw the love and hope of the people towards young people who dare to step on a journey to challenge the system. This has moved me differently. My biggest learning is that people forever remember what the person did and how their presence made them feel. And the only way to be alive among people is to work for the collective good and in a consistent manner. This will help me silently and crucially. It will boost me to be capable of people’s trust and earn the appreciation of honest critics in the future. "
2. Ajita, 2022 YWPLI Fellow - Interned for an election campaign of an independent woman candidate for Parliament Election (Parliament & provincial election 2079 BS)
"From the internship, I learned a lot qualitatively, it was the biggest learning ever. From internal political factors to strategic political campaigns, it was great learning there. Since I am keenly interested in engaging in mainstream politics in the future, I believe this internship will help me somehow to design political campaigns for myself and teach me how to tackle possible obstacles."
3. Grishma, 2022 YWPLI Fellow - Internship at the Federal Parliament Secretariat
"I am very excited about the internship. I am particularly interested in exploring the situation of women and youth welfare, issues relating to unemployment, and steps taken by the government to address these issues through my internship."
Stay tuned to hear more about our programs and from our Fellows!
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!
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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.
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Women LEAD’s Young Women’s Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI), an intensive, eleven-month program aims for the political empowerment of young Nepali women, achieving gender equality through strengthening the knowledge of political leadership, enabling their capacity to work as an active mediator of social change and politics.
One of the core modules of YWPLI is the field trip which provides our Fellows a-week long field visit experience with local representatives/ Mayors out of the valley. The aim of the field trip is to provide the Fellows hands-on learning opportunities from local women representatives/leaders, Mayor, and Deputy Mayor outside Kathmandu valley during their field trip.
YWPLI Programs team organized a week-long field trip (12th Dec-17th Dec 2021) for the 2020 YWPLI and 2021 YWPLI Fellows to explore the geographical political aspects by visiting two municipalities of the Province 1 of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. The purpose of the visits to municipalities: Damak Municipality and Suryodaya Municipality would enable participants to observe the development happening in the region by themselves, interview local leaders, politicians and explore much about the differences of the leadership in their hometown, Kathmandu, learn the role of youths and women in a political sphere to have a better governing system.
The fellows met the local government heads from both Suryodaya municipality and Damak municipality (Province 1). The discussion with the local government heads highlighted their challenging journey to mainstream politics, changes they have been able to bring in during their tenures were very inspirational to the fellows. Similarly, through the panel discussions with the female politicians, the fellows got to interact with women leaders at the local level. The fellows also got an opportunity to visit the Bhutanese refugee camp in Damak Municipality which fostered discussion on how Geopolitics affects national politics, the rights of citizens and refugees, the role of foreign policy.
Hear from some of our Fellows about their experience:
“The seven days of the YWPLI Field Trip was a very fulfilling experience and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My knowledge about democratic processes has widened and I gained more insights on local level politics and women in politics from the eastern side of the country. This has further ignited the passion in me to make a change and taken me a step closer to mainstream politics.” - Mega, 2020 YWPLI Fellow
“One of the special parts of this field trip was an opportunity to understand the works done by female leaders by getting a chance to closely converse with them and to understand the challenges and struggles they face while they work to prosper their communities and nation as a whole. Furthermore, it also provided us with the opportunity to go in the field, talk with the people who live in the vicinity and to learn the true picture of the issues faced by women in the society.” - Simrika, 2020 YWPLI Fellow
“For someone who has lived in Kathmandu all her life, this field trip was an eye-opener. Not only was this my first visit to Illam and Damak but my first attempt at analyzing the political scenario of a place that was not Kathmandu. My interactions with the local female political leaders have had a profound impact on me and have left me with a zeal to be an active member of my community. I am sure that the lessons from this field trip will be monumental if and when I decide to pursue a political career.” - Swastika, 2020 YWPLI Fellow
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Women LEAD virtually welcomed 20 fellows for the 4th iteration of its 2021 Young Women's Political Leadership Institute(YWPLI) on 16th August. The 20 fellows were selected among 130+ applicants following a rigorous selection process. After the successful completion of the 2-week-long Politics Institute, fellows are now preparing for the field trip as a part of their fellowship.
Let's hear from some of our YWPLI fellows about their journey so far:
"My Experience at the Young Women Political Leadership Institute has been mesmerizing and encouraging so far. I've learned so many things about feminist ideologies, struggles, and political journeys of women politicians but the system of supressing women in political participation caught most of my attention. What I experience is hope, the realization of how important our speech and participation are." - Sashi, 2021 YWPLI Fellow
"Getting selected in YWPLI itself was a dream come true moment for me because I knew from the beginning this was going to be the starting point of many beautiful journeys ahead. And it's been months since the enrollment, and the experience so far has been nothing but super amazing; be it meeting with active political members from various political backgrounds, be it learning different political ideologies, or be it listening to their life experiences. Joining YWPLI was indeed the best decision as I know there is yet more to come. Never been so much proud to be a part of like-minded and empowered women. Thanks a bunch to Women LEAD - Pratisha, 2021 YWPLI Fellow
"One of the major things that piqued my interest to join WLEAD is the umbrella community it offers you of amazing women from different backgrounds. One of the many things I'm really grateful for is how supportive the fellows are of each other when it comes to important causes" -Bibhu, 2021 YWPLI Fellow
"Women LEAD has been a great platform of self-discovery. Here, I learned and unlearned many things. I understood the importance of debate, yes I did. I realized how important it is to listen to people’s opinion and analyze it. Maybe everything you are made to believe is not right. I learned to think !" -Krispi, 2021 YWPLI Fellow
"My experience at WLEAD has been nothing short of incredible. The Politics Institute under Women LEAD’s Young Women Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI) has helped me pay attention to what goes around in the political atmosphere from a closer lens. I joined YWPLI with the enthusiasm to find a way to make a meaningful contribution to the community, especially in relation to political leadership. A primary learning, and perhaps the most important one, from the Politics Institute, has been the realization that the foremost change must happen at the grassroots levels and that begins with awareness. I have learned a great deal about politics, not just from the trainers but from my fellow counterparts as well. They inspire me to do better, learn more, listen more, and speak out more, every day. The Politics Institute has been a qualitative exercise, a pointing compass to gain direction at the bigger political aspirations. It has made me understand that politics does not happen in the Parliament, it happens in the streets, inside houses, at tea shops, in schools, and in universities. I have learned that Political Leadership fosters when there exists a state of awareness and when decision-making is positively influenced by such awareness." - Diksha, 2021 YWPLI Fellow
Stay tuned for more updates from our 2021 YWPLI in the upcoming months!
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