Strength TogetHER 18- Session 5

14th January 2022

Strength togetHER facilitated by Lokopakar provides a safe platform for girls to share their personal stories, ideas, and feelings. We have been conducting our sessions physically at different schools. Now, we have started our physical session at Jyotidaya Cooperative Secondary School at Chapagaon.

Jyotidaya Cooperative School in Chapagaun, a community in the outskirt of Kathmandu Valley, is a model school that offers an alternative to expensive private schools and low-quality public schools. Run by a group of young people, the school is the only community cooperative school in Nepal. Jyotidaya School is developed as a model nonprofit, community school where tuition is at least 40% less than comparative private schools, and 1 in 7 children, mostly orphans and children from poor families, study for free.

Our topic for the week was, “Body Positivity”. We had asked the participants to come with stories in our previous session.

Our participant shared that her body is slim.  Even though her body is slim and trim she still wants to be thinner. It is not because of anything else but she just wishes to be thinner. but wants to be thinner.

Next participants mentioned how her height has stopped increasing. Because she already has her periods she feels her height will not grow and she feels sad about it.

Our next participant said how she cried when she was told by her sister that she will outgrow her. She mentioned he has small height and now her sister will be taller than her which brings tears to her eyes.

Next participants felt hurt when her mother and everyone called her fat she really felt hurt. These kinds of comments ache her heart when it is said by someone near and dear to her.

Our next participant shared she felt bad about the comments which are passed down to her. Before she was short and everyone used to tease her for being short. Now she is tall, lately, everyone is telling her how tall will she be?

The next participant said how everyone said she has become extremely thin and everyone tells her-’ khana diyena ki Kya ho'. These kinds of comments make her think a lot and it really gets to her.

Our next participant shared her mother and friend's comments on her being fat. She doest feels good when her friends tell her being fat. Due to lockdown, she has gained weight but she feels comfortable with it.

After sharing our story, we discussed how we can tackle these kinds of comments and feelings:

  • Being grateful for body parts because they can function.
  • Self Love is a journey and it is not a destination. We should take small steps one at a time.
  • Do kind things to your body.
  • “Beauty” is a broad word. It has a different meaning for everyone. We cannot make everyone happy so we much accept ourselves

After discussing these takeaways we came to conclude we will try to love ourselves a little bit more every day.

For our next session, we plan to do it online through Google Meet and on the topic “Sharing my funny and sad moments”. With a huge smile, we took group photos.

 

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