What is I Can Lead?

'I Can Lead' aims to empower and break the stereotype that 'Girls can't be Leaders.' We focused on girls aged 14-20, aiming to raise awareness and eradicate the stigma around female leadership. Our initiative in Bagmati and Sudur[ashchhim provinces engaged 30 young girls through workshops and research. The 'I Can Lead' workshop enhanced their leadership skills, civic knowledge, and understanding of SRHR.

I Can Lead (July-December 2020)

Workshop: Kathmandu

The first workshop in Kathmandu was completed with 20 young girls, aged 14-20, as part of the 'We for Change' initiative. In collaboration with AIDS Healthcare Foundation and Girls Act, the workshop focused on Civic Engagement and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The participants delved into topics like Good Governance, Women in Politics, Election Procedures, SRHR issues, consent, feminism, public speaking, confidence building, and research essentials.

Research Phase: Kathmandu

These fellows conducted six different community researches. The We for Change team educated young fellows about the importance of research conduction, proper ways of selection of research topics, data assimilation, tabulation and presentation.

The selected 20 fellows were divided into six teams respectively after mapping their interest and area of expertise. They worked together with one another for the fulfilment of the project’s objective of conduction of researches aligning with two major themes: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Civic and Political Representation of young women in Nepal. They produced 6 research papers.

Workshop Phase II: Kailali

In Kailali, we worked with 10 HIV Positive Young Girls from age 14-20. The workshop focused on Civic Engagement and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The participants delved into topics like Good Governance, Women in Politics, Election Procedures, SRHR issues, consent, feminism, public speaking, confidence building, and research essentials.

Research Phase: Kailali

In the second phase and follow up activities in Kailali district, 3 researches were carried out. In this research phase the girl leaders surveyed, collected answers and interacted with the community members about the prevalence of child marriage, about HIV/AIDS and its causes of transmission and regarding menstruation. They produced 3 research papers.

I Can Lead (January – June 2021)

The next phase of project ‘I Can Lead’ was divided into three major phases Mini-mock Parliament, Community Intervention Activities and Leadership and Communication Development Program. All these components aligned with the major goal of the project i.e. Strengthening leadership, policy level intervention and decision-making capacity among young girls of age group 14 to 22 years residing in Bagmati Province (Kathmandu Valley) and Sudurpashchim Province (Kailali district) in the sectors of Civic Education and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights by the end of June 2021.

Implementation in Kathmandu

Mini-mock Parliament

Mini-Mock Parliament was conducted in Kathmandu Valley. Research Phase of ‘I Can Lead’ 2020 cohort served as a base for the conduction of Mini-mock Parliament in Kathmandu. The implementation of the Mini-mock Parliament was based on parliamentary practices, electoral system and system of democratic governance used by Government of Nepal and encouraged 20 young female leaders to discuss about the problems brought forth through their research and be able to come up with powerful mitigating solutions to address these problems altogether.

The Mini-mock Parliament used tools such as presentation, storytelling, games, dialogue and discussion to cover three major topics:

1) Mock Parliamentary discussions and representation of women in it.

2) Active participation of women in facilitating discussions of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and women’s participation in politics of Nepal.

3) Drafting of innovative and replicable solutions to solve the issues of Civic Education and of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Nepal brought forth by their research.

2. Community intervention activities

The 3 intervention activities which were finalized from the mock parliamentary committee comprising of 20 fellows was implemented among the targeted communities of Kathmandu Valley by 3 teams:

Team Moments developed and published a five-minute powerful video to raise awareness against Gender-based violence (GBV) where they prepared the scenario, dialogues and edited the video all by themselves. Due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the team reached out to different girls and youths online to be a part of this action.

Team Lessons conducted 5 physical and virtual sessions with school going students addressing issues related to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) among 270+ participants.

Team Conversations facilitated 2 sessions on the topic ‘Electoral Process in Nepal’ and ‘Women in politics’ reaching 85 school girls. The team also published a video documentary featuring Ms. Aleeza Dhakal, a Nepali woman politician highlighting the scope, challenges and urgent need of women’s engagement in Nepalese politics.

Impementation in Kailali

Leadership and Communication Development Training

This training was organized in Kailali district to empower 10 girl leaders through strengthened public speaking skills. The activities consisted of script writing and speaking training followed by podcast recording of their voices. The podcasts were played on their local radio stations. This training enabled young girls in Kailali to advocate for their SRHR and civic rights in their own voices through radio within their peer groups, families and local communities.

Resilient Girl Kit inclusive of educational materials and menstrual sanitation kits were distributed to ensure easy educational access and encourage them to improve their menstruation hygiene. The leaders were also provided with the Resilient Girls Scholarship as a support and encouragement for them to continue their education in the coming days.

I Can Lead (July-December 2021)

With the aim to follow up and engage young girls from the past two phases, new activities were planned and implemented. The girls were made aware, engaged, educated and empowered about female representation in politics, enhancing leadership and decision making capacity in SRHR, enabling them to make policy level changes and carry out community intervention activities to solve major girls related problems.

Implementation in Kathmandu

Leaders Mentorship Program

In Kathmandu, 12 young girls from our previous cohorts were equipped with mentorship skills through various sessions from experts and these young girls empowered 8 new girls of the new cohort in the topics such as menstruation, safe abortion, HIV/AIDS, WASH, and civic engagement. After the program, the girl fellows were divided into four (4) teams: Team SWAG (Special Women Advocacy Group), Team Elements, Team Abhaya, and Team Fearless. These teams delivered Community Intervention Programs on topics related to menstruation, safe abortion, HIV/AIDS, WASH, and civic engagement to 550+ school going students (girls and boys) in five different remote schools of Kathmandu Valley. The teams also distributed informative books, sanitary pads, and soap to the school participants to encourage good hand washing practices and knowledge sharing.

Girl Leadership Development Program

Girl’s Leadership Development Program was organized in Kathmandu where all the girl fellows strengthened their knowledge on organizational development and strategy, management theories and practices. This program was essential to provide a safe space for girl leaders to experiment and lead their ideas into action on their own in a professional and systematic setting. The activities of this component focused on: strategy building, effective communication, personal productivity, techniques to work and empower the team, proposal writings, pitching and demonstrating, effective meetings, objective setting and developing a culture which supports high performance teams.

Implementation in Kailali

Menstrual Rights Advocacy Training

Menstrual Rights Advocacy Training was held with 10 girls from Kailali district. The young leaders attended training related to Reusable Pad-making Training, public speaking workshop and debates.

Reusable Pad-Making workshop

The 10 young girl leaders trained 20 other girls from local care homes on reusable pad-making process and gave brief sessions on SRHR and menstruation. The 10 young female leaders were formally certified as Reusable Pad-Making Trainers after the completion of the training. The girl leaders were really motivated to provide the training to people living near them.