WOW Virtual Nepal 2020

WOW emcee and curator Malvika Subba talked to two Nepali women Chini Maya Majhi and Kalpana Limbhu, who have championed the identity of indigenous women and have strived to advocate for indigenous knowledge and culture.

Watch here

Four women poets from different age groups came together for this intergenerational conversation and talked about how poetry has enabled their self-expression and at the same time how this creative tool is able to help them comment on issues surrounding them.

Watch here

An Intersectional Feminist Collective, UN Nepal and the British Council produced a series of mini-documentaries and conversations throughout the months of August and September as a campaign to start conversations around the harmful practice of witch accusation and persecution in Nepal. The programme was curated and hosted by Anjana Luitel who held conversations with persecution survivors, human rights lawyers, journalists, and artists to discuss the topic and to better understand how this practice has been affecting mostly marginalised women from all three geographical regions of Nepal, what the reason behind persecution is and explored how women’s safety needs to be guaranteed.

Watch here

Shailee Basnet, who led the first all-women team of seven-summiteers and started a journey from Mt Everest in 2008 leading to the group conquering all peaks by 2014talked about the challenges that her group faced throughout the journey and how solidarity and support between the women ended up becoming the strongest motivating factor for them to succeed. She also talked about life after seven-summits and how her team has been working with young trafficking survivors to help them become professional trekking guides.

Watch here

Watch four women in comedy -- Elena Gurung, Loonibha Tuladhar, Sanjana Maharjan, Yozana Thapa Magar -- in conversation with WOW curator and presenter Malvika Subba. The women talked about their journeys into the world of a rather male-dominant Nepali comedy scene, how they were able to create a niche for themselves and how they put into use their art to talk about social issues mostly concerning women. We also featured performances from the four artists during the talk programme. 

Watch here

In this programme, Nawalparasi-based sign-language teacher and social worker Dipawali Sharma held a conversation with contemporary artist Rashmi Amatya. The women took turns sharing their experiences of being deaf women growing up in Nepal, the struggles they went through for education and to establish themselves as professionals in their respective fields. The conversation was also featured in Nepal Sign-Language. Nepali voice-over and English captions. 

Watch here

LGBTIQ+ Expressions featured Bites sessions by Activist/Content Creator Shailee Chaudhary, Intersex Rights Activist Esan Regmi and Digital Content Creator Lex Limbu. The speakers talked about their struggles and how they have constantly made an attempt to overcome them through their voice and expression.

Watch here

To mark the International Day of the Girl Child, WOW Virtual Nepal 2020 brought to you a panel discussion titled Gender in Children’s Literature.
Creating Heroines artist and curator Promina Shrestha talked to author Anuradha, writer, translator and educator Muna Gurung and Room to Read’s Literacy Programme Senior Manager Pawan Karki about the Children’s Literature scene in Nepal. The speakers talked about how inclusive the scene is and how women and other gender minorities are represented in the content produced.

Watch here

WOW Curator and Presenter Malvika Subba talked to women filmmakers Shanta Nepali, Barkha Mukhiya Rai and Prasuna Dangol about their careers as women behind the scenes in a male dominant industry and how the participation of women in filmmaking has brought a positive change in the content that is produced each year.

Watch here

A decade ago, Marani Devi of Mahotari was accused and persecuted of being a witch. She has overcome many odds and is now a social worker in her village. Artist Pallavi Payal caught up to her to talk about her case which became instrumental in bringing about a number of policy-level changes in regards to WAP abolishment and gender-based violence.

Watch here

WOW Curator and Gender Specialist talked to UNWOMEN representative Rachana Bhattarai about witch accusations and persecution and the research done by UN of the harmful practice.

 Watch here