Prayatna Nepal is the self-help organization working for empowering the living condition women and girls with visually impairments. The organization is established by the composition of both women with and without visually impairments. Among the seven board members, five of them (71%) are with visually impairments where the organization is led by the totally blind woman as the Chairperson. This idea of inclusion in the organizational structure is to ensure equal efforts from every individual with better understanding in improving social, cultural, economic and political aspects of lives of women with disabilities.
With the aim to ensure independence among visually impaired girls and women, Prayatna Nepal organized 7 days daily life skills training at Pokhara to enable them in preparing and cooking meal/food, cleaning, washing dishes and so on. Ms. Sabita Lamichhane, secretary of Prayatna Nepal, facilitated the opening session by welcoming all the participants and highlighting the objectives of the training. She asked all the participants to introduce themselves and then explained the training module as a lead trainer. The training began by participants learning to wash, peel and cut the vegetables. Among all participants, most did not have any experience of kitchen chores so they were assisted accordingly. Some were divided into groups to learn their way around using gas stoves, opening and closing the lids of pressure cookers, peeling and cutting vegetables and washing dishes. For this, the facilitators as well as all the representatives of Prayatna Nepal assisted the participants individually. Ms. Sabita Lamichhane mostly oversaw all the activities and mainly took lead in cooking food items, while the assistant trainers, Ms. Jimawati Lamkoliya and Ms. Srijana Pariyar, guided the participants in peeling, cutting, washing vegetables and mopping floors, and logistic supporter, Ms. Saraswati Manandhar guided and taught the participants in overall all activities. The participants also learnt to peel, slice and cut different types of fruits such as mangoes, papaya, watermelon, and so on. The participants were divided into groups of two or three in order to ensure better and effective learning. In the 7 days training, everyone got opportunities to be involved in all kinds of kitchen and household chores. In overall, the participants learned to prepare tea for breakfast, typical Nepali style Dal-bhat-tarkari-achar for lunch, and pasta, omelet, and fruits for mid-day snacks/meal. Similarly, they also learnt to clean/mop kitchen and dining spaces.
In last day of training, we took feedback from each participant. The participants expressed their gratitude towards Prayatna Nepal team and suggested to provide further refresher trainings. On the seventh day the participants were able to carry out most household chores independently with confidence.
