Prayatna Nepal is a nonprofit, non-religious and non-political women led organization established for the empowerment and rights promotion of women and girls with visual impairment. Since its establishment in 2015, Prayatna Nepal has been implementing various activities targeting to the visually impaired girls and women. Since Prayatna Nepal is the part of overall national and global disability rights movement, it has adopted the social and rights-based model of disability and the key motto of global disability rights movement “Nothing about us without us”. 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.
On the first day, chairperson of Prayatna Nepal, Ms. Sarita Lamichhane welcomed the participants and highlighted the objectives of the two-days training. Ms. Sarita Lamichhane asked the individual participants to introduce themselves. She then welcomed Mr. Shishir Khanal, secretary of National Association of the Blind, who initiated the session. He started by explaining about organizational structure, where he explained the basic concept and definition of organization and its associated terminologies. He also explained how the NGO (Non-Government Organization) is designed and how it operates in terms of roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. He also described the general hierarchical structure, mission and vision of the NGO. He also clarified the importance of agenda in conducting any meeting. He explained that the agenda of a meeting serves as a roadmap or outline that guides participants through the topics to be discussed and actions to be taken during the meeting. He also highlighted why meetings contribute to the overall effectiveness, communication, and productivity of the organization, where he informed the participants that meetings serve as a cornerstone of organizational communication, decision making, and collaboration.
On the second day, the training started with participants sharing what they learnt on the previous day. Then Ms. Sarita Lamichhane started the session by briefing on the organizational structure and aspects associated with meeting. Then she also guided the participants in creating and deciding on code of conduct precisely associated with their network i.e., sister of Prayatna Nepal. In this session, Ms. Sarita and participants along with the help of Prayatna Nepal team unanimously created a list of code of conduct relevant to their network. This code of conduct has helped to set clear expectations for behavior and performance standards within the group. Not only that, it will also help in promoting respect, trust, fairness, and accountability within a group which will ultimately contribute to a positive work environment and supporting the group's overall mission and objectives i.e., Prayatna Nepal.
At the end of the second day, Ms. Sarita Lamichhane explained about the importance, where mentioned that minutes serve as an official record of what was discussed and decided during a meeting which shall document key decisions, action items, and any outcomes, providing clarity and accountability. After the theoretical session, she then guided the participants to create a meeting minute, where she gave a format and possible agendas to work on. For this, Ms. Deepika Kumari Sharma also helped the participants to create the meeting minutes. Two groups were formed, one consisting of members of sister of Prayatna Nepal Gandaki Province and other being Lumbini Province. After the practical session, the members were also asked to prepare an action plan relevant to their networks. Then, they shared their action plans and were provided suggestions by Mr. Shishir Khanal and Ms. Sarita Lamichhane accordingly. Ms. Sarita Lamichhane then asked the participants to share their feelings about the two-days training individually. After the sharing session, she welcomed Mr. Shishir Khanal, who thanked everyone for their participation and concluded the program
