Prayatna Nepal conducted one-day Feminist Dialogue Series in Pokhara on 27th December 2023 among 19 blind and visually impaired women and girls. The program was formally started by Miss Sarita Lamichhane chairperson of Prayatna Nepal. She welcomed all the participants. She introduced Prayatna Nepal as organization. She mainly focused on the activities that are conducted under Prayatna Nepal. First of all, she started introduction of participants. In the introduction part, participants were asked to share what they feel happy about being visually impaired woman and what they feel sad along with their name, disability. participants started introducing themselves. Most of the participants shared that because of their disabilities they got opportunity to connect with fellow blind and visually impaired women and got opportunity to study higher education.
And the sad thing is that blind and visually impaired women have face different violence and discrimination in home and society. After listening to participants, Miss Lamichhane started the program. Oath taking was done among the participants to maintain the confidentiality of the program. She started sharing her own story relating to discrimination. In the same way, participants started sharing their stories and experiences.
Participants shared their stories and experiences of sexual harassment, issue of property right, mobility problems due to the limited access in public transport, violence in public places, domestic violence, educational barriers, family conflict etc. After their stories, they shared how they overcome the situation. In order to get out of various problems, they use different strategies such as advocacy, rebellion in the family, conversation with friends. As the final part of the program, recommendation from the participants were collected for the upcoming activities that should be done through Prayatna Nepal. According to majority of participants Prayatna Nepal needs to organized same kind of feminist dialogue series, personality development training for blind and visually impaired women, good touch and bad touch orientation for girl child, life skill training, self-employment training ETC.
This event provided a safe space for these visually impaired girls and women to share their own stories and experiences. They also learnt that meaningful actions should be taken with precautions against people who try to take advantage of them and their disability.
