The “Rising Voice” is a project that proposes to advocate the voice of urban young girls who has been sexually harassed and molested in both of the private and public spheres of Kathmandu Valley. The project also is designed to reach to policy makers through online portal sharing. The project will be writing 50 blogs throughout the year and a platform to discuss about the possible solutions. The team will be organizing a series of workshop in the very beginning of the project that aims to explore the ways to encounter the problem and to empower themselves with their own alliance.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Kathmandu
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Although interest on working on gender based and sexual violence against women in Nepal has fairly grown, the specific focus on sexual violence against adolescent girls , who are generally an easy victim of sexual violence, is conspicuously lacking. In support to existing evidence, the study done by Himrights, it shows that every one girl in ten (9.8%) experiences sexual violence. Adolescents’ girls are the vulnerable communities that are the target of sexual harassment and molestation in the different arena. Therefore the project focuses on the young urban girls who have the access to internet but cannot express their days of torcher faces in the times of sexual harassment and molestation.The project also seeks to raise the voice on underrepresented girls who has been victim in many ways.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
‘We’ for Change ( www.weforchange.org)
‘We’ for Change ( www.facebook.com/weforchange)
Nishchhal Kharal ( www.facebook.com/nishchhalkharal)
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
After participants take part in workshop, they are encouraged to share their stories using social media that give insight to the community about the real problems of the young girls. 50 blogs will be written in a year where 50 different young sexually violated girls will be sharing their story about them and a platform is created to discuss about the problems and to take out the positive solutions by the young people. Petition campaign will be held in social networking sites as a result of which a memorandum shall be presented to the ministry of women and children. Their issue and its possible solution are documented and shared to everyone through online portal. In addition, we plan to incorporate photographs, and documentary concerning the idea of possible solution.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
‘We’ have been working for the International National Governmental organization named ‘Hariyo Pusta’ in the various schools of Kathmandu Valley from where we can easily connect with the young girls of Kathmandu Valley. ‘We’ have also been organizing various leadership developmental classes in governmental organizations so that we could easily work with the targeted group.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
Our project targets to give training to the young girls of urban areas for the behavioral and communication change. Our project targets to give training to the 50 girls of 10 different school of under privileged area form where we will be in indirect reach to more than 500 under privileged, underrepresented adolescence girls who are internet literate. These trained groups also have their own circle of such girls who they can also train and pass the knowledge and information that they have learned during training. Therefore those trained girls will be penning their experience in the field of sexual violence in their personal experience and their surroundings which will be effective in writing and sharing the issues in the online portal.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
As workshop expect to deliver the basics of psycho social first aid, digital audio and video, and share these capabilities to the Internet through social networking sites YouTube and the organization’s website, ‘We’ plan to hire a spacious room equipped with good internet connection for the workshop. ‘We’ are able to offer tools to create content in different formats, for which girls will train in the basics of visual language, digital photography, making effective blogs and active participation in the documentary video.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
‘We’ will be conducting the workshop in a spacious room with the access of Wi-Fi facility where the workshop will be accessing with the projector and various electronic medium. Whereas the blogs will be conducted from the office of ‘We’ for CHANGE where there is abundant facility of the computer, laptop and internet which has been equipped with ADSL service of internet. The facility to operate the social media will be the boon for us to conduct the yearlong project in an efficient manner.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
‘We’ for CHANGE is the only organization of Nepal which works for the adolescents for behavioral communication change. Since 2012, ‘We’ have been working with the adolescents of urban areas of Nepal in the issues of Young civic leadership, environment sustainability, RightAlert and Adolescent Health. ‘We’ have already worked with the number of adolescents to create a sustainable positive change in the society. The organization also plans to lobby for the young people rights and the platform for the various issues related to different scopes of the development. ‘We’ have our network in various schools where the adolescent loves to engage in the activities generated by the organization. Therefore, ‘We’ think as a most appropriate agency to work for the project.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The major challenge for the project is that the young girls will not be approaching for sharing their stories in the digital platform in a direct way. Young girls will possibly hesitate the idea of coming forward and working for the blogs and the workshop. The tool to work for the major challenge is the training and the guidance for the young girls for the behavioral change. The workshop will designed in such a way that focused group discussion and the psycho social first aid tool will be introduced to the young girls so that they will come forward to share their ideas regarding the sexual violence in adolescents.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The impact of project can be evaluated based on discussion platform where the issues of the decrease in violence rate and increase in awareness against sexual harassment and violence on girls in social media are covered. 50,000-signature campaign will be held against sexual violence among girls in social media and is submitted to the policy makers of Nepal that will measure the success of the project for issuing a policy for the gender inclusion. Feedback that we get from the trained group and other participants in the social media will also be the tool to evaluate the project’s impact in the society. Participatory evaluation along with the trained girls will also play a vital part in defining the proper positive impact of the project.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Activity 1 (August)
– Orientation Formation of working group
Activity 2(September)
– Workshop for the young girls
Activity 3(October)
– Training, mentoring and leadership workshop to participants on the issue of project.
– Start of website creation and social media training.
– Sharing of stories, issue along through picture, videos, articles with the possible solution in social media
Activity 4 (Ongoing)
– Online portal sharing
– Petition campaign in social media and submit it to the policy makers.
– Documentary will be made by the end of project.
Activity 5 (Ongoing)
– Monitoring and Evaluation
– Report and feedback
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Hardware – $ 300
Internet access,- $800
Workshop costs- $750
Travel- $100
Coordinator expenses- $300
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
- Support and advice on making of the information to influence decision and policy making.
-Networking and publicity
Contact name
Monika Chaulagain
Organization
‘We’ for CHANGE