Heart is supposed to beat in the chest yet mine was beating in my mouth. At one point, I believed I wouldn’t return home, not in one single piece at least !
The road conditions were miserable and it took me 18 hours plus to reach the beautiful village of Rabi in the East of Nepal.
Nestled in the peaceful hills of Miklajung which is a rural village municipality in East Nepal, the Rai community welcomed me in this village accompanied by Srijana Rai (currently serving as the Vice President of Stars club Green Village Nepal).
Srijana is one of the highly motivated youth who graduated from the Green Village Program in September 2021. Ever since her graduation, we had been discussing visiting her village to reach youth with similar interests. Time permitted us to achieve this dream in September 2022.
This Training of Trainers (ToT) experience was definitely one of a kind. Actually anything I write will merely be a combination of words compared to the experience I had together with Srijana.
This tribe is one of the indigenous ones in Nepal and this community in particular was peculiarly reserved. You could observe the obvious gender disparity in the families (at least the 3 houses I visited), the ceiling that young women hit when they express their desire to work independently in the city, the amount of invalid comments, when women choose to lead an independent life regardless of the resistance from the family !
The ToT in itself was a big achievement in terms of the number of people who attended it. The effectiveness? Well, it is not as easy as imagining the impact and effectiveness of it, from a remote desk 500 kilometers away in the capital !
However, one takeaway for me from this entire ‘once in a lifetime’ experience is to ask myself these important questions:
What can I do as a mobilization manager to support the youth from geographical regions as this.
Are we doing enough to incorporate these young women, while aligning and adhering to the essence and vision of The Green Village Nepal?
What is the dream of Life Project For Youth in the end?
This experience, exactly, like I hoped, has given me a window to peek through to realize how better to serve this project. And there is nothing more I could ask for !
With Gratitude to my core team
Maria HITANG
Project Manager Mobilization
Green Village Nepal