Medium for expression

Nepal is a developing country and like in most of the developing countries women are lagging behind in every sector from socio-economic, political to education. Though there are many organizations working for women empowerment the situation of women has not improved as it is supposed to be. In Nepal, there still prevails the trend of celebrating when a son is born and mourning when a daughter is born. Though there are certain incremental changes seen in urban areas, rural areas are still far behind in treating women as equal to men.

In context of urban areas, women are progressing but the freedom is limited to the choice of dress and shoes, a woman cannot decide on major issues of her life like what career to choose, where to work, when to marry, when to give birth to her child and in what number. The modernization in Kathmandu has limited women to being just an object of entertainment .The ever flourishing billboards in Kathmandu valley popularly known as hoarding boards is an example of how women are being treated as sex objects. From an advertisement of lady’s cream to men’s wear and accessories a lady model is used wearing revealing clothes.

In order to free Kathmandu from this modernization and so called freedom of women, Lasanaa, an alternative art space, along with women down the pub, an art group from Denmark has come up with the innovative idea to aware people on treating women as human beings rather than objects. This is a project which discusses on gender and democracy issues through public art. This project aims to aware general public through the use of billboards which is not for the commercial purpose but to make people understand about the matters that are crucial to the society and to its development.

The main objective of this project is to showcase most creative expressions about gender and democracy and to put forward the thoughts and expressions of the general people in billboard. Hence they are seeking for creative, multidisciplinary (art/text) expressions on the topic of ‘gender and democracy’ for this billboard. (For further information log on to: www.differentvoices.com)

Precisely, women are not made from men’s feet to be trampled upon by him nor out of his head to top him but out of his side to be equal with him and to be treated as equal to him.

म

नितान्त एक्लोपनाभित्रको म
सारा संसारबाट टाढा
आफ्नै अन्त्यहीन सोचाईभित्र
आफ्नै बेग्लै संसारभित्र
कल्पनामा तैरिंदै
भावनामा उर्लिंदै
भित्रभित्रै खोक्रिएको
भित्रभित्रै च्यातिएको
हजार टुक्रामा च्यातिएझै
हजार टुक्रामा बाँडिएझै
बेग्लै संसारमा हराएझै
यो संसारबाट बिलाएझै
बौलट्टीपनभित्रको म
चेतनशील पगलभित्रको म
असम्भवताको आशमा
जिउँदो लाशमा
झल्केको म
मर्दै बाँच्दै गरिरहेको म
टुक्रिएर जोडिएझै
ठाउँ-ठाउँमा चर्केको म
अन्त्यहीन जोडाईबाट
पटक-पटक तर्केको म
आफैभित्र हराइरहेको म
आफुभित्र आफुलाई नै खोजिरहेको म

श्रव्यविहीन शब्द

आँखाभित्र बसेर
आँसु बनी बगे
मुटुभित्र पसेर
भावना बनी पोखिए
बगेका आँसुलाई आत्मसाथ गर्न सकिएन
पोखिएका भावनालाई शब्दमा ढाल्न सकिएन
आँसु-भावना प्रस्फुटित भईइरहे
तर अर्थ बन्न सकेनन्
शब्दका श्रव्यविहीनताभित्रका
गुञ्जाई भए यी
रितिएका मुटुभित्रका
भावना भए यी
भरिएका पानाभित्रका
खालीपना भए यी
अद्श्य छाँयाभित्रका
द्ष्टी भए यी
अर्थ हुँदाहुँदै पनि
अर्थहीन भए
यी मेरा श्रव्यविहीन शब्द
सरल हुँदहुँदै पनि जटिल भए
यी मेरा श्रव्यविहीन शब्द

Women at work

Yoshinkhel is situated in the medieval city of Bhaktapur near the bank of Hanumante river in Nepal. It is located within the Bhaktapur Municipality 1 km from Araniko Highway. It is a poor, backward and disadvantaged municipality in eastern part of the capital, Kathmandu. The community is inhabited by 135 families listed under disadvantaged and has a total population of 1594 people including adults, and children.

Sabina Matangi, a local from Bhaktapur was acutely aware of the domestic daily routine of the women in Yoshinkhel. She was disheartened that the women were staying idle. About two years ago Sabina’s frustrations motivated her to gather these women to be involved in income generating activities. The women from Yoshinkel were enthusiastic and so Sabina started a group called Social Action for Community Development to help focus her goals.

To start the knitting program first of all seed money was required. So the participating women contributed about Rs.50 to pay to the volunteer who trained them to knit. Sabina generously added Rs.500 from her own pocket. There were many other women who were interested in joining in however their husbands or in- laws did not allow them to participate as they regarded knitting as a low grade job. But now a smile flashes across Sabina’s face when she mentions that many husband and in-laws are helping the women‘s work. In fact many women show off garments that have been completed by their husband! Not only housewives but college students are also interested in knitting as it has been their source of income and they no longer have to ask their parents for pocket money. The knitting program has not only helped women create a source of income but it has also helped them realize that they are not inferior to any man in their community.

The women have been knitting a variety of garments including caps, socks, mufflers and mufflers attached with cap. But the greatest battle that these women have to win is to market the product effectively. Currently they have two clients in Kathmandu, one in Thamel, a tourist spot in Kathmandu and other in Jhoche, a place in Kathmandu. Clients can either place an order based on volume or on piece by piece basis. Currently they are working on volume basis. The local vendors are currently paying nominal prices for the whole orders and this barely meets costs for the women. Sabina is searching for a potential market where she can actually sell the product in or outside Nepal.

Till date, the knitting training has been held in Sabina’s house and she eagerly dreams of the completion of the building of the education centre. Sabina has been saving the money generated (after paying the women) from the knitting program to build up the centre so that she could shift the knitting centre and the education centre in the same building.

Sadly for Sabina, she does not hold much hope for grants or assistance from any local organizations. She recently asked for help and was disappointingly told they did not trust that she would use the funds properly. Sabina is truly grateful for the attention given to her project by NABUUR and the volunteer Neighbours. If Neighbour of Yoshinkel from Nabuur were not there then her dream of empowering women and educating the children would be impossible.

To learn more about Sabina’s work and to help her. Please login to:www.nabuur.com

Accidents and Compensation Policy

In Nepal, there were many cases where we find in simple accidents vehicle drivers deliberately kill the passers by or the other vehicle drivers. This is not because the driver is a killer or has fantasy to kill but it is because of the compensation policy. The compensation policy of Nepal was designed in such a way that driver are urged to kill the victims. If a person dies in a vehicle accident then the other party has to pay only NRs.17,000 and some legal charges but if the person live is saved in the accident then the other party has to bear his medical charges of the other person . So this policy compelled the one party of the accident to kill the other party. There were many cases when vehicles were turned and hit the victim leaving him/her to die. Due to protests from the last few months these days this policy is not effective. Here I am not going to mention about the hit and run cases in accidents and not even about the compensation policy of Nepal.

Poverty in Nepal is a well known fact. People in Nepal do not have a decent earning and are involved in laborious works. You must be wondering why I jumped from accidents and compensation policy to poverty. Today I was talking to one of my instructor; he shared a very distressing fact. I will come to this fact a bit later. I was talking about poverty previously; there is a saying “Rich gets richer and poor gets children.” This statement is too ironic and true in many cases. Poor people while giving birth to children only think about the hands that work not about the mouth that asks for the food. The number of children might also be due to lack of access to contraceptives or due to lack of awareness. But today I heard that people mainly of Terai belt; marginalized and ultra poor people, they tend to bear children to get compensation. You might be wondering when these days government is discouraging for bearing many children; I am talking about the compensation for child bearing. But this is not the case, in the highway areas, parents themselves leave their child and domestic animals to be hit by the high speed vehicles so that they can claim for the compensation for the death of their child.

These days women population is highly missing from the population data in India and China. The sex selective abortion is high in rate, though the government highly restricts such abortions. There are numerous Indian citizens who come to Nepal for abortion. I was glad of thought that Nepal has yet not been influenced by these two neighboring countries. But today when I found that in this context my country is far too ahead of the world’s progressing countries, I feel dejected and shameless of not being able to help. Human by nature is selfish and tends to do anything for one’s prosperity but it is the limit to be selfish. The poverty of our country has made people so desperate that to have a decent meal they are not even hesitant to kill their own child.