One Billion Rising was celebrated among Nepali community more vibrantly where young and senior feminist raised their voice against the exploitation of women.

The day started with honoring Olga Murray (Founder of Nepal Youth Foundation) for her contribution towards providing education, health care, human rights and housing for disadvantaged children in Nepal.

The celebration continued with brainstorming dialogue between inter-generational feminist at Kamla Hall, Tewa, Dhapakhel, Lalitpur. More than 150 participants actively interacted in the program.

To mark the day and to rise against patriarchy, and rising FOR democracy, socialism and secularism for women’s equality the dialogue session was conducted on the topic “Are Our Women Not Empowered: Our Intergenerational Experiences”.The plenary session had 6 key speakers – Alina Saba (National Indigenous Women’s Federation), Badri Pun (Samabeshi Manch), Durga Sob (Feminist Dalit Organization), Lily Thapa (Women for Human Rights),Sabin Mulmi (Forum for Women, Law and Development) and Shanta Laxmi Shrestha (Beyond Beijing Committee). Amuda Mishra (Ujyalo Foundation) moderated the session.

Each speaker highlighted about their background which was grounded on gendered structure society where our action, practices, values and norms are socially constructed with gendered division. All speakers agreed on different forms of injustice, exploitation practiced by the society.

The discussion also focused on bridging between the young and older generation in Feminist/Women’s Movement. Some of the important ideas that emerged during the session were young generation feminist need to be more focused on self- responsibility along with their rights. With growing number of divorce cases, it is important for young generation feminist to concentrate on their duties and roles accordingly. Also, ideas like technical brilliancy is seen new to senior feminist as social media and technology are a new concept although they have well understood the value of technology in advocacy which can easily go viral in the global world. Some of the key outcomes discussed were the role of men in advocating the rights of women; equal participation of both men and women in understanding the issues. Further, as women’s role as homemakers are devalued, it needs to be re-thought in the fast growing world where working at home is equally important and is of greater respect for improving the area of balance.  

The celebration followed with a rally commencing from two different places – one from Krishna Mandir, Lalitpur to Bhatbhateni Department Store, Pulchowk and another from Naxal to Bhatbateni Department Store, Bhatbateni. The rally ended with a flash mob dance program at both the venues. The rally was very effective in bringing awareness to the general public as this was conducted at the heart of the city in the presence of local crowd. Slogans on rights and violence against women were chanted and it was observed that people were eager to read the slogans on the placards as well. The day also supported the campaign of redtika – challenging the patriarchal society where widows are forbidden to use red tika (red dot on the forehead) as a form of gender discrimination practice in the Nepalese society.

The rally ended with flash mob where 50 young feminist volunteers and pro-feminist men volunteers danced on the OBR song with notes on violence against women with full of zeal.