Laxmi Nepal

Laxmi Nepal is a young, powerful feminist. Her personal experiences, peer role models, and the situation of women with disabilities in Nepal prompted her to join the movement of women with disabilities in Nepal in 2012.

APWLD interviewed Laxmi in January 2021 and below is her story.

Becoming a feminist and women human rights defender 

I am blind. I went to an integrated school as a child, meaning I studied alongside sighted children. I used to live in a dormitory because my school was far away from my home. There were a number of positive sides to an integrated school, but there were also challenges I had to face. Teaching was not adapted to accommodate blind students’ needs but only catered to the sighted. Braille textbooks were hard to come by. This was because the ratio of the blind students to the sighted ones was about 1:20. The majority was prioritised, and the minority was marginalised. I set my mind to doing something for underprivileged groups in formal education. 

After completing the 10th grade, I had to travel on my own to learn computer skills or go to college. I realised that being a girl with disabilities, I had to face multiple challenges. Travelling alone was hard, and so was facing the social stigma of disability as well as being a woman. I had to outshine my male counterparts to be considered for the same position. That was when I started to ponder over the issue of social discrimination against women and the issue of girls and women with disabilities, and the intersectionality of both. The leaders of women with disabilities who used to organise many programs for us gave me inspiration. They empowered the younger students by organising all kinds of activities and events, like debate and speech competitions. I was impressed with the initiatives of those sisters with disabilities. 

I was brought up in Kathmandu, the capital and largest city of Nepal, enjoying relatively more facilities for people with disabilities than people in other cities and rural areas. Even so, accessibility in Kathmandu is not up to par. The city was and still is densely populated and overcrowded. There were and still are lots of obstacles, needing to be adapted for people with disabilities. But with the large number of blind people inhibiting Kathmandu, the general public and the system were more or less sensitised. People were more likely to offer help those with disabilities. Sometimes, I get asked why I travelled alone when Kathmandu was not yet made accessible for the blind. I would always say that the city may not be accessible yet, but our people are. It was shocking to see that in remote areas of Nepal, physical accessibility and humanistic care for people with disabilities were almost non-existent, and women with disabilities were having it way worse than men.

My personal experiences, peer role models, and what I found out about the situation of women with disabilities outside Kathmandu were why I got involved in the movement of women with disabilities. I joined Blind Women Association Nepal (BWAN) in 2012 as the youngest board member so far and served for two terms. For one year, I served as the General Secretary and was a program officer till February 2021.

Building the Movement of Women with Disabilities in Nepal

In the movement of women with disabilities, I have witnessed both internal and external progress. BWAN expanded in size, our scope of work, and the number of allies. Now, we get to cover different districts with our branch organisations and have local, national, and international allies. We are increasingly gaining visibility and recognition at local, national, regional, and international levels. I have also seen changes within the disability movement in the past eight or nine years. When I had just joined BWAN, the movement was not as strong as it is today. There was only one organisation and I always met the same people in all the meetings and programmes in the movement. Now we have more people involved, and new organisations and leaders are emerging and going strong. The movement has been strengthened and women’s rights organisations, disability rights organisations, as well as local and national stakeholders have started to put women with disability in decision-making positions.

However, we still have a long way to go.

Despite the promising progress, there are many challenges. BWAN faces funding difficulties. We went five years before we could get international funding bodies to recognise our organisation, though that doesn’t mean funding is now easy to come by. Before that, we used to organise local fundraising campaigns, like talent shows and concert programmes where Nepali women with disabilities were the participants. Difficult or not, with or without international recognition and financial assistance, we keep going, and giving up was not and will not ever be an option. 

Another major challenge was the prevailing patriarchal beliefs and practices in Nepal. Women, particularly women with disabilities, suffer from patriarchal exploitation and pressure. It was exceedingly difficult for us to bring the change in laws and policies to compel organisations and institutions at different levels to be more inclusive to women with disabilities. Again, with all the difficulties in mind, we just keep going. With continued advocacy, we have at least 33 per cent of women on board in most of the organisations in Nepal. We had to push for Nepal’s women’s movement to be sensitive to women with disabilities. Gradually and still insufficiently, women with disabilities are seen and included, and begin to appear at decision-making levels. We need to educate, sensitise, and empower women with disabilities themselves. Challenges are numerous, but we will always remain persistent. 

My Journey With APWLD

I first got to know about APWLD through our organisation’s president who was involved in one APWLD programme. One of our funding partners recommended that we apply for the Womanifesto grant in 2018. We did and got accepted. So begins my journey with APWLD.

I am impressed by the fact that APWLD not only provided grants but also offered training on capacity building and advocacy skills for the programmes we were tasked with implementing. Our colleagues had a high opinion of the training as well as APWLD’s way of giving out funds. One of the things we have learned from APWLD is the many different approaches to advocacy. We used to stick to one proven method. It was very effective, yet there were occasions when the proven method might not be the best method. Now we have APWLD’s toolkit.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, APWLD’s training is very thorough, such as tech training for organising online meetings and campaigns. My colleagues even learned new approaches to introduce the participants in training/workshops. We launched a local radio campaign with financial and technical support from APWLD. With their support, we were able to cover regions in Nepal that were considered most backwards for women with disabilities.

Also, because APWLD has members across this region, we got to learn how our sister organisations work. I hope APWLD will continue supporting us and its other member organisations in this way so that we can continue to learn, make connections, and carry out similar projects in other nearby districts.

Two of the APWLD organised/co-organised events I took part in personally are the Asia Pacific Urban Forum (APUF) and Beijing +25: Review of the Beijing Platform for Action. I learned to seek collaboration with other organisations during Beijing +25 training and find common grounds for joining forces to be possible and practical. 

I also participated in the Young Feminist Forum which was organised by APWLD a day before Beijing +25. It was a great learning opportunity for me because I got to hear many feminist activists share their stories and activism. Before then, I did not know how the different countries and different forums adopted the Beijing Declaration. 

Participating in Beijing +25 gave us an opportunity to join the government meeting. I came to know how different countries’ governments take women issues, and how these types of declarations and international processes come into practice. That was a great learning experience for me. We also got to know how different organisations were moving forward in their countries, which inspired us realise that if they were doing such great work, so could we.

Ways moving forward

In the future, I hope APWLD will make its training and events more accessible. APWLD has been good in that they understand my situation and let me bring a sighted colleague for assistance during APWLD training. Before the training, APWLD would reach out to me and ask how to make my participation easier. During the training, APWLD facilitators/trainers are usually mindful of my needs and would explain any visual aids. This is good practice, and more practices of this kind are needed to improve APWLD training accessibility. For example, sending out training materials in advance is good, as it allows me to study the content beforehand, which makes following the trainers much easier. APWLD can continue training the facilitators and trainers on accessibility (online/offline). Also, I think APWLD should consider providing computer skills training to women in general. I hope that in the future, more organisations that advocate for women with disabilities will join APWLD and become part of this regional network.

Lastly, I think some strategic changes need to be brought to APWLD as well as its member organisations. There should be a mixture of both young and experienced feminists on APWLD’s board and committees. I see this as a good way to connect the older and younger generations of feminists. We value and should look for the leadership of experienced people, but the involvement of young feminists in every community, every training session, every organising committee, and different communities under APWLD is also crucial. A mixture of both young feminists and experienced ones makes the perfect team combination for APWLD as well as any organisation. In Nepal, young feminists are finding it hard to enter any movement. We should change that.