Independent (Ganga Gautam)

After my 30 years of university teaching, now I have been involved in empowering young and adolescent girls in Nepal. Girls in rural Nepal are still struggling to complete high school education mainly due to the sanitation issues in schools and girls miss schools and exams during menstruation. Also, there are very few women in the leadership positions and in decision making bodies. Similarly, due to the lack of appropriate counseling service in high schools, girls face challenges during adolescent and suffer from harassment and abuse. I wanted to change this by empowering girls from young age. For this, a team of passionate individuals developed a program called Girls' Empowerment Program (GEP), implemented it in some parts of Nepal. GEP encompasses four specific components; Managing Adolescent Changes including Menstruation Hygiene; Leadership Development; Study Skills; and Communication Skills. Pilot implementation in the past few years shows that girls who participated in this program have become successful in study and some of them have demonstrated positive and transformative impact in the community. Now, I am committed to expand this program to other parts of Nepal and empower the girls' agency from the very young age. I have joined Rotary Club of Patan (District 3292) and through which I am passionate to expand GEP in different parts of Nepal. In addition to this, I am also working with some international organisations in research on sustainable development. I also work with the government of Nepal particularly with the Ministry of Education in areas of educational research, preparation of the policy documents, program development and teacher training.