Volunteers have been the pillars of Tewa that has helped Tewa build its foundation since the very beginning. Tewa started to mobilize volunteers since 1997 to help local women come out of their home, empower them, and provide them a platform to share,learn, and grow. However, with changing times, the involvement of youth and males has also increased.
Tewa organizes volunteers training twice a year to mobilize the local community people and provide the opportunity to share a platform for people from different context and background.
Tewa organized a 3 days training for 22 local women and youth from June 20 till June 22, 2018, in Tewa premises. The main objective of this training was to mobilize the people of the community to promote local community philanthropy, and to create an equitable, just, and peaceful society. Volunteers training is also a medium to contribute towards local fundraising. This is the 46th-second batch who partook in the training.
The main facilitator of the training was Mrs. Nikiba Pradhan, Jr. Program Officer who started with the introductory round from the participants. And then a day long session on women and development of women in the context of Nepal along with the present situation of women was conducted by our Chairperson Dr. Nirmala K.C. On this day, our facilitator talked about how feminism came into existence in Nepal and the progress of Nepali women to date.
The second day of the training focused more on the work Tewa has been doing. Srishti Jayana, Communication and Documentation Officer at Tewa gave a brief presentation about the core programs of Tewa. The presentation focused on the origin of Tewa and went on to include how it became successful to providing grants to 486 women organizations. This session was able to provide transparency to the work Tewa has been doing. The next session was taken by Sambida Rajbhandari, the coordinator of Sangat Nepal on Gender, Patriarchy, and Power Relations. The session was with no doubt one of the most effective sessions as most of the participants who were homemakers became aware of the ongoing issues related to gender in their house or community. The next session by Urmila Shrestha, Executive Director gave an insight of the Tewa's fundraising history and Volunteers Award. Then the session on “How to be an effective fundraiser?” was facilitated by our Board member Janaki Shah. On this session, she gave some tips and techniques on how to approach donors and how to convince them. In addition to this, Janaki Shrestha a volunteer also shared her fundraising experience to motivate our participants. The day ended with the exercise on Power relation done by Srishti Jayana and Sambida Rajbhandari.
The final day started with the Tewa tour by Nirjan Shakya, Program Officer who provided the information about the history of investment on Land and Building for self-sustainability. Then, a session on Grantmaking was conducted by Anuja Shrestha, Grant Making Manager. This session focused more on Tewa's grantmaking strategies and its journey of supporting local level women of Nepal. Our grantee partners based on Kathmandu were invited to share their work experience and the changes they have made in the lives of women through the grant received from Tewa.
The Grant amount worth NRs 90,800/- was handed over to Biswash Nepal, an NGO working to help women in the entertainment sector.
Ganesh Man Maharjan, the former Chairman of VDC (2049 B.S) shared his experience on how and why he supports Tewa. Although he was a regular presence in the events at Tewa, he recently became an annual donor seeing how his contributions could bring about changes in the Nepali community through Tewa.
The volunteer program was enriched by Mr. Kedar Rayamaji’s communication and motivational talk as these are the two key elements essential for communicating with diverse categories of people.
The program ended with the short musical dance performance from the participants.
