Strength Together 2- Session 4

8 August 2020

Strength Together is a virtual session facilitated by the organization "LOKOPAKAR". Lokopakar is a youth organization that has been taking the initiative to provide a wonderful platform for youths( especially young girls and women) to express their stories and views based on their personal experiences

After the successful completion of our third session, we conducted the fourth session of Strength Together Cohort 2 on 8th august 2020, Saturday. Along with the active participation of 25 girls, our session on the topic "A Time I supported Someone" was conducted very smoothly. The session was managed through zoom. It started at 4:30 pm and ended at around 6:00 pm.

Our respected and cheerful moderator Bhawana Ma'am made our session even more motivating and interesting. She is currently working to reduce the risk and probability of sexual violence all across Nepal and India as a marketing Manager of Fightback.

Starting with the session, I, Sabdita Adhikari was really excited as I have always loved these sessions, and this time I was preparing for the blog. It was really fun to write about such powerful young girls. We had 4 amazing girls who shared their stories of the time when they were helpful and supportive. All of the speakers shared stories with respect to their personal experiences.

•Our first speaker told us about how her friendly nature is popular among her friends. She is always supportive to everyone but at the end of the day her good side always turns out to be a betrayal for her and she gets portrayed as a bad one which really hurts her.

•Our second speaker shared two of her stories. Her first story was about helping a poor little boy who was seeking money to eat something. But our speaker being conscious about how he will use money, bought him biscuit instead. In her second-story she shared her experience of celebrating a birthday in the orphanage. She also told that she feels really good to help people in need.

•Our third speaker shared the story of the time she helped her friend during the examination and she was really confident that her friend will do good. But her friend instead of studying made cheat and was caught by an invigilator. After getting caught that friend blamed our speaker for consuming her time and taking her home the other day. Thus, our speaker believes that not all the support is good.

•Our fourth and the last speaker told us about the incident when she happened to rescue the safari which was stuck in between huge rocks. The road was under construction and safari got stuck. She rescued the safari and the driver thanked her. The smile of that driver made our speaker very happy and she felt amazing that day.

After hearing the stories of all the girls our moderator Bhawana Ma'am also shared her story of how she was not able to help someone and how she tried to fill the guilt by doing some other act of kindness. But she believes feeling of kindness should come naturally.

Bhawana ma'am made us realize a few things. The advice we were given are:

1. Helping should come from within.

2. It's okay not to help when you can't.

3. Never expect anything in return.

4. There's a difference between kindness and favor 

This session was really fruitful for all of us. We got a chance to hear very inspiring stories for our speakers. We also learned to be selfless while helping someone. We now believe that the act of kindness is the way of happiness and satisfaction. Bhawana Ma'am told us that helping doesn't happen always and we need to accept it because we are human and we need the right emotions to do so. She also made us clear that helping is a reflex action that happens by itself. In between the session, she also showed us a very emotional and meaningful video related to kindness.

The 90 minutes session was the most amazing time for all of us. This virtual program, now, feels like a family. It was one of the most interactive sessions. At the end of the session, we captured our beautiful moment with the newly introduced "whatever" pose and concluded the session.


Written by: Sabdita Adhikari

Edited by: Aastha Shrestha (Cohort Coordinator, LOKOPAKAR)