Celebration of International Women’s Day 2021

An in-house interaction and celebration program was organized at TPO Nepal on 8th March 2021 to mark International Women’s Day. The objective of this celebration was to get together to discuss the different facets of being a woman. A total of 27 staff of TPO Nepal participated in the celebration.

Firstly, Mallika Chaulagain welcomed the participants and provided a brief history of the celebration and the importance of this day. During the first phase of the program, male participants were asked to remember and describe an inspiring woman in their life. The second phase of the program was facilitated by Pragya Shrestha, where the staff discussed the challenges faced by a woman by using the thread ball web method. Some of the challenges identified by the participants were multiple roles of a woman, responsibility of home management in addition to professional life, lack of appreciation of women’s work, conditioning since childhood to behave a certain way, structural dividends, patriarchal thinking, stigma towards women, etc.

Lastly, a commitment was made by each staff to contribute to achieving the state of gender equality from their side. Some of the commitments were to raise children as feminists, stop discrimination against women, not to judge fellow women, respect women’s boundaries, prioritize self-care, mark women’s day every day through actions, respect women, etc. The program was closed by Parbati Shrestha by summarizing the overall history and current status of women in society.