Strength TogetHER 2- Session 2

11 July 2020.

Facilitated by ‘Lokopakar’ youth organization which focuses on the development of youth personally or professionally in Nepal, 'Strength togetHER' virtual program is created especially for girls and young women of different mindsets and backgrounds. During the sessions, they all come together to share various views, ideas, perspectives, experiences, and stories. This space helps them to grow as individuals by creating a platform to be themselves, talk about their issues, and find solutions to their problems.
 
After our successful maiden session on June 27, we went onto conduct our second session on Saturday, 11th of July 2020. Themed ‘A time that taught me self-love', this session started at 4.30pm to go on until around 6:00 pm via Zoom. There was the active participation of around 20 girls. Everyone was really excited to hear and share the stories. The session started after all the participants had joined. I, along with five other participants shared our stories of the time that let us discover who we are and the real value of self-love.

The session was only possible due to our respected moderator Bhawana Ma'am. She is a cheerful and energetic person who is Marketing Manager of Fightback, whose aim is to reduce the risk of sexual violence all across India and Nepal.

Our girls shared about the phase where they had a doubt among themselves and how they overcome it.

• Our first speaker told us about her incident when she had entered into a beauty pageant. In one of the rounds, she was asked by the judge to rate herself. She rated herself 4 out of 10. On hearing that, the judge remarked "If you only rate yourself so low, how can you expect others to rate you high?" Thus, after this incident, she realized how important it was to accept yourself. This was what made her set on the journey of self-love.

• Our second speaker took us down to her memory lane when she and her friends were performing a dance for a school function. She, being passionate about dance was excited to perform but during the practice days, she realized that she was being left out and being treated indifferently by her own friends. This broke her heart and this started affecting her studies and social life too. At last, her family member was finally aware of her situation and thus said to her "If they think you can't do well, prove them wrong." This sentence completely changed her and eventually, she learned to stand for herself and love herself.

• Our third speaker introduced herself as a shy person who is scared of facing the mass and speaking in public. Her other friends were sharp in public speaking and she would be constantly left out. After several disappointments, she finally decided to accept herself and develop her skills. Now, she has the fluent speaking skills and an optimum level of self-love.

• Our fourth speaker shared her insecurity about the scar on her face that she got due to an accident at a small age. She remarked how she would be bothered about her scar and thought it made her look ugly. But eventually, she learned to overcome it and she learned to accept herself. To add the cherry on the cake, her scar slowly faded away and one cannot see it anymore.

• Our fifth participant shared her heart-wrenching experience about her friendship and relationship. She shared how panic attacks helped her to set on the journey of self-love. She shared some of the sad incidents that made her stronger than ever.

• Our final speaker recalled her hating upon herself and how she always felt she was not beautiful. She, being a bookworm, happened to read "The fault in our stars" by John Green and compared herself with Hazel Grace. She expressed beautifully how she finally decided to love herself and accept herself. Her story was really relatable.

After listening to everyone's story, Bhawana Ma'am shared her own story and made us realize:

• Self-love, self-doubt, self-care, and self-discovery are parallel

• Self-doubt is the key to discovering yourself.

• Never let the fake judgment of society and people be the reason for not following your dream.

• Apart from the negative side, bullying actually motivates you to love yourself even more.

• People may judge you, bully you, and make you hate yourself but you should never stop loving yourself.

• There is no particular time or moment to discover self-love.

• Do the things that give you happiness.

The program gave the girls to share their heart out and made us realize the fact that it was just 90 minutes. In a short time, we had a fruitful session. Also, the positivity of our moderator to see good things in every bad thing inspired us and enriched us with a positive mindset.

After the story sharing session, we shared our dreams and reached to the conclusion of keeping the spirit of dreaming and doing every crazy stuff which gives us happiness. We took a picture as a memory of this wonderful moment and ended the meeting with a positive attitude and mindset.

Written by: Sakshi Wagle

Edited by: Barsha Tamang (LOKOPAKAR)