Overseas masters go to Nepal to volunteer and contribute to the charity

Arriving in Nepal: Adapting to the days of frequent blackouts and strikes

I am 30 years old, I am moving to a new country, learning a new language, starting a new job, getting along with new friends every day, and courageously trying everything new.

A Hada, a Nepalese dictionary, a set of training materials, a map of Kathmandu, plus this month's living expenses, this is what I received from VSO colleagues in Kathmandu late at night. My life in Nepal started like this.

The first thing to solve is the language problem. In the first month, I and Nepalese volunteers from the UK, the Philippines and Kenya learned Nepali at a language school.

Second, we must adapt to Nepal's "hard" life. Nepal is very poor. As the capital of Kathmandu, living conditions are very backward compared to domestic cities. The biggest difficulty in living here is the habit of frequent power outages, which lasts for 14 hours in the winter. No heating in winter, cold indoors, hot water becomes a luxury.

In addition, you should get used to the strike action from time to time. Nepal’s political instability is still unconstitutional. Before the final concession of the Constitution in May 2019, almost every day there were strikes initiated by various groups and parties. I remember the first time I went to see my partner. I encountered a large group of demonstrators. The shops on the whole road were closed. The vehicles were also banned. In an emergency, I rushed to the armed police with guns and asked him to answer the phone and explain himself. The location, I did not expect the armed police actually smiled and pointed the way and escorted me to a safe alley.

Daily one day: intense and full visit research

As a volunteer, I have only been here for only one year. Maybe I am full of ambitions to change the world, but local people have lived here for generations. I must first understand them and respect them. On this basis, There is a possibility of causing positive changes.

As a gender and capacity building consultant, I am primarily responsible for mainstreaming gender into VSO's education, health and poverty alleviation projects in Nepal, developing a gender strategy, and providing gender empowerment to office workers and volunteers from other countries. Construction and technical support. I also helped VSO establish two new projects to address violence against women and empower women to participate in decision-making. For the rest of the time, I worked with a local NGO that advocates and protects the rights of Muslim women, mainly responsible for capacity building.

The work here is tense and fulfilling. Let me go to the Western Nepal School for a gender assessment. For example, my day is like this:

Get up at 6 in the morning. At breakfast, learn from the volunteers working at the local school about the school day, prepare water and simple snacks. Starting at 8:00, take more than an hour to reach the school, first introduce the purpose and specific activities of the gender assessment to the teachers, and then observe the teaching class in the classroom. Subsequently, students and teachers were surveyed, and students and teachers were selected for in-depth interviews. After the completion of all the research, the Nepalese language was translated into English together with the translation, so that the data could be entered later. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I ended my work in the school and walked back to the town for more than an hour.

Efforts on gender equality: change is a process of slow accumulation

Nepal is one of the most gender-neutral countries in the world, and women suffer from unequal treatment. However, working in the field of development is not anxious. The change will not come at once, but in a slow process, it will accumulate little by little.

In the 2012 Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum, Nepal ranked 123rd out of 135 countries. In the past year, I have visited many places in Nepal and witnessed the status quo here.

Taking education as an example, girls’ education is not valued. Child marriage is common. Girls after marriage often drop out of school, and most boys continue to receive education. In addition, parents tend to send boys to quality private schools and send girls to public schools. What is worrying is that students are gender-biased under the influence of society. For example, students think that women can do the job of “sweeping clothes”, while men include “drinking”, “making money” and “ know world". In schools and other educational administrative systems, women are only a small part.

Although Nepal has legislation to promote gender equality in some areas, it has been shelved in reality. On one occasion, I went to the remote mountainous areas of Nepal to collect data on a VSO project on domestic violence, but it was common to find bigamy in several villages visited, especially among government officials, police and soldiers. Even if this is not allowed in law, the villagers do not agree. Similarly, although Nepal has special legislation on domestic violence, it has not been implemented in real life.

However, working in the field of development, but anxious not to come. The locals have lived here for generations. All things, positive and negative, are part of their lives. I must first understand them and respect them. On this basis, there is a possibility of causing positive changes. Therefore, what I think is more about how to motivate their own subjective initiative, because every positive and positive result can only be done by the local people themselves. I am very fortunate that during this year, I have made more people aware of gender injustices, inspired their determination to change this situation, and began to explore and act on this road.