Punya Bhandari of Youth Action Nepal
“Human rights are the ideal. What really happens on the ground and what the government should do can be made clear by HeRWAI. This tool helps us to lobby for change in Nepal.” Punya Bhandari works for Youth Action Nepal, an NGO that is active for youth rights, women's rights and sexual and reproductive rights.
“Nepal has a high percentage of maternal mortality and much discrimination of women, especially in rural areas. Due to cultural practices, in some areas, for example, many girls are not allowed to leave their houses or to get educated on how pregnancies start. Also the caste hierarchy system is much alive in rural areas. People from the Dalit caste are discriminated against. These cultural practices make it difficult to empower people. Also, the inaccessibility of many mountain villages in the North is a problem. Due to bad roads, it is difficult to reach a hospital in time, for example to give birth. This is one of the reasons that about 281 women die out of every 100,000 births.”
Support for lobby
With HeRWAI, short for Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument, we lobby for improvement of human rights. We collect information on what the government is doing, what health policies there are on the ground. Then we take this information and compare it with human rights duties of the government. This analysis we then use in our lobby with the government. It makes a real difference if you can bring evidence and concrete recommendations to the authorities. HeRWAI helps us do this.
HeRWAI also helped me to do my work better than before. With HeRWAI I can work more systematic, recognise the necessary steps and prioritise better. Also, it helped to familiarise myself - as a youth rights activist - with women’s issues.”
Training of trainers
“I have participated in the training of trainers in South Africa to become a HeRWAI trainer. Since then I have organised several HeRWAI trainings in cooperation with other Nepali trainers. By educating regional HeRWAI trainers from all over the world, more organisations can get to know the tool and work with it. It is my goal for many organisations to use HeRWAI, so we can do research and lobby together and so increase our impact in countries.”
