ASAP Youth Advocacy Refresher – A journey to remember

It was least expected that in the first day of ASAP Youth Advocacy Refresher (YAR), we Youth Champions from Nepal would be discussing about bad weather and its consequences during flight, rather than women and their right to abortion. The unexpected weather in Kathmandu cost us some of the very interesting session on the 4^th YAR in Mumbai. Nevertheless, the sessions we got to attend in the remaining two days were extremely enriching for us.

The 2^nd day of YAR began with saddening reality of one of the woman in Bangladesh, which was depicted through a documentary screening by Anika, Youth Champion from Bangladesh. The documentary made us realize how liberal Nepal is in terms of laws regarding abortion. But despite the legalization, the challenges women had to face to get an access to safe abortion were same in both Bangladesh and Nepal.

It was a privilege for the us youth champions, Bidhya and myself to be able to share our small grant project through our film ‘Women for Women’ on Female Community Health Volunteers. The encouraging response from the ASAP mentors and fellow youth champions regarding our project has inspired all of us to forever thrive for women’s right to safe abortion starting from the grass root level. Similarly, we also had the the opportunity to share about Youth Champions Advocacy Network Nepal (YCANN), a network established with the support from ASAP with focus on SRHR and safe abortion in Nepal. Smriti and Randhir, the members from the core team highlighted about past work as well as future plan of YCANN to establish it as a strong youth network for advocacy, awareness and capacity building activities.

In our everyday life, we advocates come across people from different background who does not accept safe abortion as a women’s right. Sometimes, inability to respond to such people tactfully can lead us to our failure as an advocate. Hence, the role play session on how to tackle such situation was very fruitful for all the YCs. It also made us realize that during discussion and arguments, we sometimes tend to forget that women are our integral concern, and we must always put them in our priority while making our point.  

Understanding the politics of internet was another eye opening session for us. The hidden reality of how big companies control the internet and manipulate the people’s mind was very daunting. Similarly, the example of a girl on period whose picture was taken down by Instagram just because she posted a picture with menstrual blood stain on her pants is another case that proves the pointless regulation of content by the internet in the name of vulgarity prevention. The power of internet must be used to amplify the narratives of women’s realities rather than trying to shut their right to freedom of expression. The session also made us appreciate the internet as a revolutionary tool that is able to influence a movement, as well as empower women by enabling them get an access to critical information on SRH and safe abortion.

The session on history of women healers, patriarchy and health care on the third day of the YAR was very relatable for most of the YCs, who were health professionals. During the discussion, the YCs shared about how the arrogant attitude of health professional discourages women to seek safe abortion services in a health center. Some of the YCs who themselves were medical doctors said that even their colleagues have a negative perception towards abortion. There was also an interesting revelation on how image of nurses is imprinted as someone gracious, helpful, caring and are subjected to heavy work at low cost most of the times, because people consider nursing as a women’s natural work that needs no license.

With the very moving session on human rights and social movement, we learnt that our voices will only be heard, if they are collective. So, all of us must have one ultimate vision i.e. gender equality and for this a woman must be brought to a level where they are able to get an access to SRHR through the approach of equity. Only after the common vision, collective voice and networking we can achieve our goals and objectives through a social movement. The journey which we embark on by surviving a storm came to an end with increased consciousness and understanding of women’s right to safe abortion from a broader perspective. However, the actual journey for us youth champions as advocates for safe abortion had just begun.