What our young facilitators felt in sharing their ideas about dating violence and SDGs to people of their age

We want to give a round of applause to our facilitators who carried out orientations on gender-based violence and dating violence in Kathmandu Valley under the ‘We for Change’ project supported by Global Youth Empowerment Fund and implemented in collaboration with Men Engage Alliance. Through this project, we aimed to raise awareness on gender-based violence, dating violence and SDG's Goal 5 and promote positive behaviours and role of young people in eliminating violence against their partners.

We directly reached 1146 young people through orientation sessions in different colleges in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.

Let’s hear what our facilitators have to say regarding their experience of being part of the ‘We for Change’ project.

Amar Siwakoti

It was a great pleasure to be a part of the campaign. I conducted six orientation sessions, at Triton College, Divyabhumi College and EduHub. The orientation helped me interact and hear voices of young people on the topics. The topics were new to many young people; hence the sessions drew their attention. Therefore, the sessions were participatory. I hope such activities would continue in the future which would help reduce gender-based violence and dating violence.   

Bidya Bista

My experience in the journey of this project was challenging and remarkable. This orientation helped me develop my communication skills, particularly listening and convincing skills. Since the topic and content of my presentation ignited curiosity among my audience, I faced awkward questions. It was little difficult for me to make them understand about the issues and consequences of violence in a dating relationship. I received constructive feedback and suggestions from participants which will help me in my career. I realised that most participants had little or no knowledge on SDGs. They have recommended that we conduct similar kinds of orientation with school students also.

Seema Chaudhary

It was my first time conducting sessions with the people of my age. I realised that it is very difficult to be a facilitator. A lot of homework, session plan, content preparation, and ability to listen more are needed to be a facilitator. Through these sessions, I was able to enhance my communications skills and develop my confidence to conduct such sessions in the future.

Pratha Sen Rajbhandary

First of all, I would like to thank Yuwalaya for giving me an opportunity to conduct these sessions. It was my first experience as a facilitator. It was a bit challenging, but it turned out to be an unforgettable moment. I got a chance to meet new people and build network with them. The constructive feedback encouraged me to develop my confidence and overcome shortcomings.

Sanyam Rai

I got an opportunity to co-facilitate orientations on gender-based violence and dating violence organised by Yuwalaya at Bright Vision International College and Santwona College. This was a very new experience for me. I learnt to facilitate sessions, control a mass of people and give out positive messages. All participants were active and asked many questions. I learned to think before answering the questions. This was a great learning experience.

Nisha Magar

This has been a very good learning experience for me. I learned to conduct and lead orientations for young people. I and my co-facilitator used the presentation method to discuss gender equality, violence and exploitation against girls and women. There were about 100 participants in my session and their active participation made the orientation very effective. I am very happy to be a part of the campaign, which was a great success.

Dharma Rimal

It was my honour to facilitate orientations on gender-based violence and dating violence among young people. Gender-based violence has been discussed since long; however, ‘dating violence’ was a completely new topic for our audience. This sparked interest and curiosity in them. Many were not aware of dating violence. We received positive feedback from our participants on how we can eliminate violence against women and girls while in a relationship. They suggested including dating violence in policies and implement them effectively, running orientation sessions in rural parts of the country and engaging young people to raise awareness on this issue. In overall, it was not only about teaching or facilitating, but it gave me ample opportunities to learn from other young people, mutually.

Suchitra Thapa

Working with youth of various age groups was an exciting experience. Participants, at first, took the session as normal, but their interest grew when we put together 'violence' and 'dating'. I used a lot of examples to make the session interactive and interesting. Even to us as facilitators, we were asked ‘Have you ever been victimised or faced any types of violence? What did you do?’ I remained honest to the participants with a hope to inspire them to act against violence. Although some youth took this topic lightly, there were many participants who shared that this topic was really new to them and should be of concern to everyone. When they appreciated me, saying ‘We should share about dating violence with our friends and our siblings’, I felt I accomplished my goal.