Strength TogetHER 5- Session 1

5th September 2020

"A strong woman stands up for herself and the stronger one stands up for everybody else." 

The main motto of Strength TogetHER is to rise ourselves by lifting others as well. A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. She is both practical and spiritual. And, that's what we all are in this session- strong women.

Strength togetHER is a virtual platform which provides safe space for girls. It is facilitated by Lokopakar, a youth organisation bringing innovative programs for the youths. It has already helped many girls to gain self confidence and realise their self worth. This program has inspired many young girls to discover their self love. Therefore, we decided to expand the session to a larger audience. And I feel so proud to say that we have conducted the introductory session of Strength togetHER, cohort 5 successfully.

We were really excited to start the session with a new group of girls. I was very excited to meet and talk with new people and obviously couldn't wait to be friends with them. I feel so privileged to be the coordinator and run the sessions of cohort 5 with such inspiring, young and fearless girls.

The session started at 3pm and went until 4pm via Zoom app.

Starting with the session, Barsha Didi, one of the most humble and sweet person gave her introduction and told us about Lokopakar. She said how Lokopakar is working for youth development which is mainly focused on outdoor learning. Lokopakar is also currently working in two projects-mentorship for students from grade 9-12 to develop personally and professionally and Strength togetHER.

After knowing about Lokopakar, Prastuti Didi, the most helpful hand of Strength togetHER gave us a brief introduction to the history of Strength TogetHER. She is very friendly and energetic person. She explained how Stength togetHER has been organizing the session, creating safe space and keeping the sensitive and personal information confidential. 

In order to break the silence and make the session more interactive, our coordinator of cohort 2, Aastha Shrestha came up with an idea of an Ice breaker game. She is really hardworking and fun loving girl. We were supposed to share the most recent picture from our gallery and explain the story behind it. It was really fun and rousing to hear everyone. This helped us know each other better.

Moving forward, each one of us were asked to state our expectations from the upcoming sessions of Strength togetHER. Out of all the responses, some of the expectations that our girls have from us are:

• Discover self love and realize her self worth. Overall, she wants self development.

• Improve confidence and public speaking.

• Expand the program to greater group of girls and help them utilize the space well.

• Motivate and inspire many more girls to be self dependent and grow.

It was really a fun and interactive session with almost 15 active participants. It was such a great pleasure to see all the girls actively participating and willing to take stands for each other. We are very proud to say that the introductory session was a huge session. Looking forward for more sessions.

Written by - Manaswi Agarwal ( Cohort Coordinator, LOKOPAKAR)

Edited by - Aastha Shrestha ( LOKOPAKAR)