Home Events EmpowHER 2016 Concludes Awarding the Winning Changemakers

EmpowHER 2016 Concludes Awarding the Winning Changemakers

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Kathmandu, September 3, 2016: EmpowHER 2016 has now formally come to an end with the organizing of a special graduation ceremony in the capital today and awarding the winners.

The three winning impact projects viz. ‘Redefine’, ‘Sanitation Health Environment’ and ‘Creating Solutions’ were awarded on the occasion.

The project, Redefine, by Samanata Thapa, a student of Kathmandu College of Management, seeks to professionalize the works of housemaids and provide quality service in different communities by uplifting and polishing the capabilities of women domestic workers in Kathmandu. Similarly, Sanitation Health Environment, an impact project by Yashaswi Surana, a student of the same college as that of Shrestha, tends to create women friendly restrooms at public spaces in Kathmandu valley via sanitation marketing, whereas, Creating Solutions, a project by Ashra Kunwar, a student of Golden Gate International College, will focus on mobilizing the women group of Khokana city to build a climate change resilient and adaptive capacity regarding the same, with the help of community based resources.

The awarded impact projects have received a seed fund money of Rs 50,000 each to launch their projects. The projects were selected out of the total of 15, one each of the 15 EmpowHER cohorts this year. A three-member jury team comprising of influential and prominent people: Charu Chada, Chief Editor of WOW Magazine, Niraj Khanal, CEO of Antarprerana and Samriddhi Rana, the Project Manager at Bihani Social Ventures had selected the winning projects after vigorous rounds of pitching their project ideas and Q&A sessions about the projects.

On the occasion, all the 15 cohort members were felicitated with certificates of participation by the mentors in the EmpowHER project.

Started in the year 2015 with a belief that empowered women will empower society as a whole, EmpowHER, a three-month long programme provides a platform for women to exude their ideas, exercise leadership, and contribute as an effective member to the community. It seeks to ensure that the aspiring women leaders will be exposed to innovative learning through various trainings in leadership, networking, mentorship, and designing and implementation of projects that help other marginalized women, ultimately createing a society where all the women are empowered.

In the duration of the last three months, the cohort of girls went through various engaging activities that as a whole helped them to overcome social and self-created barrier in our society.

Giving the keynote speech at the graduation ceremony, Pramila Acharya Rijal, Chairperson, SAARC Chamber Woman Entrepreneurs Council said that women empowerment is synonymous to economic empowerment and making them self-reliant. “As all these 15 girls each have developed the project for community empowerment and engagement, and working beyond for themselves, they can for sure bring out a visible impact in the nation,” she said. “A better world just doesn’t happen on its own. Instead, it’s an outcome of some small initiatives like this EmpowHER project,” she shared, lauding the works done by the organizers.

Speaking on the occasion, Chhiring Yangjum Sherpa, the coordinator of the project EmpowHER expressed her happiness to see the project they started last year taking this shape. “In the three months of experience this year, we are glad to see the girls being transformed into change-makers themselves who are capable of empowering the whole community they will be working with,” she said. “In the duration, they not only learned about leadership skills and women empowerment stuffs in workshops, but also went to the community and engaged with the people there. This means, they can now successfully run the project in their target community and hence bring about a change, by empowering the girls and women there in the community, which would have otherwise remained impossible,” she added.

The ceremony, held at Moods Studio Lounge, Tripureshwor was witnessed by more than 200 personalities of Nepal from different walks of life, including diplomats, young entrepreneurs, social workers and many more.

Glocal Khabar, as the official online media partner, had regularly reported the updates throughout the project duration.

By Basanta Kumar Dhakal