Harmala Gupta

My story  by Harmala Gupta, Delhi, India

A personal experience – I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when I was 33 years old - changed my life and career trajectory. It was not as important to finish my Ph.D. as it was to reach out to other cancer survivors.

At the time cancer support groups were unknown in India. Cancer was a diagnosis every one hid. My first thought, therefore, on my return was to think of a way to assist people to share their concerns.

I approached oncologists who were initially dismissive. The first reaction was, “This is a western concept. In India we have a family”. However, having participated in a peer-based support group in Toronto I knew just how needed it was for both patient and family.

I was lucky to attract a group of like minded people. We got an opportunity to visit patients in a breast cancer clinic. The needs were simple and ranged from curtains to shield women as their breasts were being examined to sickness bags so that they did not vomit on the floor. Help with medicines and breast prostheses followed. This was besides the emotional release felt by those who were able to talk for the first time about how they felt.

Since then cancer support in India has come a long way. I now head CanSupport which is bringing palliative care to the homes of cancer patients living in Delhi. I am privileged to be its founder.  

New Founder

My story is...

New Founder

My story is...

Rekha Mody

                                      Founder Story by Rekha Mody
                        Founder, secretary, Stree Shakti The Parallel Force
                                             Kolkata, India

There is no tragedy greater than a woman being forced to abandon her child in order to allow the child to survive.

I founded in 1984 the children’s charity, Divya Chaya Trust, as a result of being exposed to many such children, especially girl children who were abandoned by their single mothers.  God’s natural plan is that every mother looks after her child; yet the plight of these women was such that they chose the terrible option of child abandonment.  It became very clear to me that I have to work for women’s empowerment to avoid this tragedy; otherwise my work would remain incomplete.
Hence, in 1998 I founded Stree Shakti The Parallel Force.  Stree Shakti aims at harnessing individual and collective energies of organizations engaged in human welfare. This forum, apart from providing a platform of joint action, also aims at the collection of related information. It is a movement to rouse and activate women of every class and creed and empower them with the necessary inputs to work as catalysts for fundamental social change. It is not an exclusive forum and it would like to have a helping hand from everyone, men, women and children.

• Creating visibility of women achievers
• Working with the grass root women -  Swayam Siddha  Self Empowered
• Working towards an Equal Opportunity Commission 

As the journey goes on, my involvement is increasing as new challenges are thrown open. It has also enhanced my commitment as now I see myself as not just a community worker but as a women empowerment campaigner.

November 2007

Sallie Gratch

A Tough Time in the Life of a Founder    by Sallie Gratch   Founder   Women Founders Collective

Six weeks ago, I was faced with a task that far exceeded my experience and knowledge:  switching the domain registration of Women Founders Collective (WFC) from one registrar to another. 

Sound simple?  It should have been.  It was not.  While I had web technical support, I understood that the task was too time consuming for WFC’s web techie.  The problem was mine to track down who held WFC’s domain registration and then to transfer the domain to another registrar. 

For the next three weeks, I learned how to tolerate “holding” on the telephone for up to 45 minutes until technical support took my call.  I also learned to challenge technical support, always trying to move ahead, rather than end up where I started 45 minutes earlier.  Sadly, what often felt like a step forward too often ended with the opening question still unanswered.  

As my search continued, my spirits began to drop.  Seeing a couple leisurely walking down the street, enjoying each other and their surroundings didn’t help.  It felt as if my obsession with this task had removed the quality from my life.  Was all this intensity worth it? 

The time arrived for me to feel sorry for myself.  And feeling sorry for myself helped me get back on track, to remember why I founded WFC in the first place:  to support women founders globally so they would no longer feel alone.

I felt alone and frustrated until I thought of all the women founders I have met through WFC, women who share the same frustrations and despair, who keep at their work, no matter how many obstacles they encounter, because they believe in their cause. 

I wouldn’t abandon WFC.  In fact, I now understand, it is WFC that adds quality to my life.

And yes, I did resolve the issue of WFC’s domain registration.  I felt as if I had accomplished the greatest feat in the world.

And, in fact, I had!

Sangita Nirola

Founder Story by Sangita Nirola, Kathmandu, Nepal

What I would most appreciate having you write is a statement about your  experience as a founder.  In other words, describe your "founder journey".  (Question posed to Sangita by Sallie Gratch, founder, Women Founders Collective.)

My journey as a woman founder began on January 2002 when I was a victim of gender discrimination at my work place.  I was working in a five star hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal.  I joined the hotel at its pre-opening stage and served the hotel to the best of my capacity.  But when the hotel started to give promotions to male candidates, overlooking me, I realized that I was facing gender bias.  My manager was not convinced that a woman could run the department. The very day I realized this gender bias, I typed my resignation letter and submitted it to my department head.  I wanted to show them that earning a good salary was not my only priority; I also needed justice.

That was the turning point of my career. I saw this as an opportunity to challenge them, to show I knew I can perform at a high level and that one day I will show them my strength as a leader.  I was very disturbed by my Manager's statement that I do not have leadership quality.  I believed otherwise.

When I went home I started thinking of other women in my country who are less educated and privileged than I.  My eye opening for initiating the NGO for women's empowerment was: " If a woman like me who has access to resources, who is privileged, educated and born and raised in the city faces gender discrimination, how and what is the situation for other women in this country who are less fortunate than I?”

It was then that I decided to found an NGO named Swati.  “Swati” is the name of the goddess of power.  I chose this name because I wanted to show all men and the community that women are more powerful if they are united and if they want to do something, they mean it and complete it.

When I started Swati, I had no idea how to begin. Therefore, I went to visit many organizations to gather information and resources.  The persons from most organizations were not very helpful and cooperative; but I still continued my effort and gathered a lot of information.  Slowly, I began reading books on gender and empowerment and participated in various workshops, seminars and focus group discussions.  I gave whatever money I had to set up an office.  I rented a flat and started the office with one supporting staff.  Through the Internet, I learned about Global Fund for Women USA (GFW USA).  I started communicating with them via email.  Then one day, one of my friends recommended an Australian volunteer to me by the name of Amy Wickham.  Amy and I then started searching funds through the Internet.  Finally we were able to convince GFW USA of Swati’s worth and we received seed money of $7000.  With this grant, we started lady drivers’ training, the main program of Swati.

I believe that unless women are not economically independent, they cannot be empowered.  With this vision, I started providing skill trainings for underprivileged groups of women, women from conflict areas and single women.  Swati is the first women's organization in Nepal who produces lady drivers.  Our lady drivers are hired by UN agencies along with other NGOs.  The women earn a very good salary compared to jobs most women have.

We also started weekly interaction programs on women's issues. These programs are focused on issues for housewives who lack knowledge of their rights and other aspects of gender and empowerment.  Every week we invite prominent personalities to deliver speeches on a given theme.  This program helped us a lot to interact with many people as well as with journalists resulting in our making a special place for ourselves in the media.  In this way, our program has been given much attention through the media.

Now I am proud to say that Swati is a well-respected and well-established NGO in Nepal.

Today, Swati has reached five years of its journey toward the empowerment of women.  Swati also works for good governance.  In reframing and restructuring Swati's vision and mission, we now have a mission of promoting good governance through women's empowerment.  Our long-term vision is to mainstream women in the socio-economic and political development of my country.

Swati has been running smoothly for the past three years as we were able to gain funding from major donors like ESD/DFID, USAID, GFW and Danida HUGOU.  

However, all of our projects will be soon phased out.  Now I am in such a position that I have to decide which area, sector and donors I should work with.  I have to secure funds for the coming five years.  Swati has become well recognized and currently has six district offices outside Kathmandu valley.  Each office requires money to run its activities and for the running cost of the office.

Right now I am in such a position that I do not have the funding but still want to run programs and offices our six districts.  It's a great challenge for me.  But still I am hopeful and believe in myself that I can manage all these problems and will get funding.

The only thing is that if I get a little amount of money in this difficult period, I would be recharged for further activities.  In this time of transition for my organization, friends, women founders, I need your moral support and suggestions.

Sangita Nirola
Founder
Swati
www.swatinepal.org.np
Kathmandu, Nepal
July 2007

Uma Ghimire

About the short  History of Rural Women’s Network Nepal.

                                           Written By: Uma Ghimire

                      

 Nepal is developing country where are multi cultural, multi languages and multi cast system. It is located in South Asia between the largest country China and India. Covering with the land of 1,47,181 aq.km and 2,31,51,423 population, all of them 14% lives in urban and 86% lives in rural area of Nepal. In reality, women literacy rate is less than 30 %. In Nepal there is not good condition of children and women. Our society is also affected by different problems and totally back in the case of women education. Anyhow there are few educated women in our locality and we use to talk about women justice, equality and rights to build their own identity.  I hope, you know about the internal war of Nepal between Maoist and government in which about thirteen thousand of people were killed, twelve thousand became widow, and thirty thousand of children became orphans about 1 million children affected by the 10 years war directly and indirectly.

Looking condition of those children and widows. We can’t sit peacefully than we discuss in our societies with educated women   to do something for women and children from our side. We gather from different society of our district, from different community women we discuss to make the executive committee, all of the women we make a nine member executive committee. I (Uma Ghimire) became president from the first meeting. After then we registered this organization in district administration office Sindhuli and different government and non- government office in Nepal.  We open our central office at Hatpate- 8, Sindhuli.

At the beginning time society and even women were against us. But we didn’t lose our hope. So that we can move strongly towards our target and did all the possible work that we could do with source and resources that we had. Now a-days many uneducated women and people are also supporting and encouraging us. This is how we established our organization collecting even a penny and a rupee for about years from everyone interested people in our society to fight against men dominated society created by our own uneducated brother and sisters.

Now we are not limited in our district only. We are going to open our central networking office in mid Kathmandu (The capital city of Nepal). We are networking all the women rights organization in different district of Nepal. I hope in near future we will connect all the women and child rights organization in different local level all over the nation.

The End