I am Sunita Basnet from Nepal. I’m 24 years old. In a of couple weeks, I will contribute my opinions to One Young World on WHYS. I am thrilled to be a delegate from Nepal. I grew up in a gender discriminated community where girls are generally, as compared to their counterparts, deprived of many of the opportunities and rights.
When I was studying in class 10, Rudra Katwal passed away due to gender discrimination. Rudra was the breadwinner of his family but later wasted his money on alcoholic drinks. When Rudra was sick, his wife pleaded for money door to door to save him but it was a pity that no one believed her. Her begging was ignored only because she was a woman. Moreover, women weren’t allowed to participate in community development.
Witnessing this situation, when I was in class 12, I took an initiative to form a women’s group. I founded a women’s saving club with ten of our members collecting Rs. 10 (equals to $ 0.14) per month. In the beginning, I had to wait hours and hours to coordinate an hour meeting.
Currently, every family is a member of our club. We have more than Rs. 100,000 in our balance. However, we provide loans only to our members because we want to encourage all women to join our group and help them to save their money for their future. Our members don’t have to risk their property to take loans from our club. However, til today we are arranging meetings under an open sky and we want to register our club with Women Saving and Credit Cooperative Limited. This limited group will be run by women with the help of men.
Besides saving money, they speak out against inequality. This is an effective way to empower women and help in the development and prosperity of underdeveloped or developing countries. Until and unless the woman is economical sustainable, gender equity is impossible not only in Nepal but also in every corner of the world. I have started WSC because I don’t want the current and future generations to suffer.
Want to know about me: http://www.worldpulse.com/user/1767
RSS feed
BBC World Have Your Say 
Microloans – great idea. Grameen bank, established by Mohammed Yunus, he won the noble peace prize in 2006 but critisized that annual rate of interest was too high.
For enterpruners from his bank the interest rate is 20%, that is too high. How can a poor person repay that? How much does your organization charge?
But I defninitely agree, to achieve equal social status you can’t get it without having an equal economic status. Would love to hear more from you.
Hello,
Yes, I was also inspired from Dr. Mohammed Yunus theory to empower the women but somehow I find that the interest rate is so high that the creditors cannot afford. Our interest rate is 10% per annum. In our microfinance, the loan is their own saving. I mean, all the members are women and they collect money every month and save it. whenever, they want to take the loan, they borrow it.
It’s their money they are using as their loan. They don’t have to go anywhere in search of money in emergency.
Thanks for your interest and your valuable time. Love to hear more in the future,
Sunita, bravo and it is good idea. Gender ineqaulity is more contributing money but I had a dream that one day,your initiative would built strong pillars of women redemption organization in country. Sunita your intiative is not easy thing so more grease.
Hello Idris,
Thank you so much for your inspiring word. I also believe that one day I will be able to reduce the gender inequality from my country. I wanted to expand this saving club in every corner of my country.
I know it’s not good, even in my community, who knows me very well. However, I believe that nothing is possible if we didn’t give a try. Once again thank you so much for your inspiring word.
Sunita you are a beautiful woman with something out of your world. That is Mercy. But not the kind that begs for money. You beg for your fellow women so that their status will change for good. 10,000 years of male power must come to an end. This power must be equal between the 2 genders. It is comforting to know that a young woman from Nepal is trying to change the attitude and mind of Nepal. Congratulions and I wish you success.
Hello Guilermo,
yes, I agree with you and hope so. Women in Nepal are now little aware of their situation so I am trying to represent my generation and hope many sisters will follow me.
The two new group has already formed. One is a adult women group and another is a group of teenage girls.
I hope I will be able to change the attitude and mind of Nepalese who wanted us to be within the kitchen.
Thank you so much for your best wishes.
Congrats to Sunita Basnet,you are doing a fantastic job,carry on, and don’t be deterred by class distinction and discrimination of Indian culture which,unfortunately,still exists..
My great-grand-father migrated from Mandvi,Cutch,India, in a sailing dhow to the island of Zanzibar where he established a religious book-shop.He did this following the farmaan and blessings of our religious leader,Sayyedna Abdeali Saifuddin.A.Q.,whose successor right now is Dr.Sayyedna va Maulana Mohammed Burhanuddin Saheb,T.U.S.,who was a chancellor of Muslim Aligarh University of India and was decorated with a doctorate in Islamic philosophy,and,Al-Azhar of Cairo, also accorded him the same doctorate.
You should also try quote the example of equality of gender bestowed by Islam to all Muslims,men and women.I know you will say but not in Saudi Arabia;and,I will tell you why.It is because they practice wahabism whic is a fanatic philosophy akin to them only,God forbid.
This will suffice for the time being.
Good luck and good wishes.
MEK
Hello MEK,
Thank you so much for your beautiful words.
I forgot to mention the year my great-grand-father migrated from India: it was 1780,i.e.,exactly 230 years ago.Our forefathers were truly pioneers;and,more so for my G-G-F,who taught the Afro-shirazi and Arab population ,not only in East Africa, but far afield in West and South Africa,labourers who were working in mines,and,who had nothing else to do at night but to read religious books in a candle light, how to read.He was so trusted that if a mail order had a few shillings left over,he would make it up with incense sticks,etc. which he included in the parcel.
Nice to hear that your forefather were from India. Nepal and India situation has changed compared to 230 years ago but still remains the same traditional norms and values to control us.
We all need to work on that…
Thank you so much
Best regards
Sunita
Hi Sunita,
I wish you all the success in your venture
You have shown initiative in starting this movement and in collecting over Rs. 100,000.00 and will definitely gain your objective.
God bless your endevour,
Philip
Hello Philip,
Thank you so much your best wishes. What I can say is that, I want to make a difference in our sister lives so I am trying my best.
Thank you so much for your blessing and verbal support.
Ms. Sunita Ji
It’s great you made an effort aleast to raise the voices of the voiceless.
Hello Dhurba Ji,
Thank you so much for your beautiful word. I hope you too are from Nepal. If so, you must be aware of our situation. We have to do much more to empower our sisters and future generation. I don’t want our next generation to suffer like our sisters. I want them to be happy and live in their own so it’s just a small effort I am trying to make a difference in our sisters lives.
I know for the world, I might be a person but we have to try to be a world for a person. That is why I am trying my best to make a different.
Sunita, congratulations for your drive to achieve a better status for women in your country!.
Dear Jaime,
Thank you so much for your valuable time you spend reading my profile. Yes, we all need to work to make a world a better place to live
Sunita- What a wonderful idea! I hope it works out. You are truly an inspiration.
Hello Coral,
I am glad that you are inspired from my profile. Yeah, this is my small afford I made to bring change in my community’s sisters.
Now it’s a time to bring change in our lives.
Once again thank you so much for your inspiring words.
warmest regards
Sunita
Hello Sunita,
Great work and keep up the good job. I am originally from Nepal too and I currently reside in Portland, OR. For sure if micro-finance is used effectively, for sure we can uplift the community. I do try to contribute to micro finance through KIVA (but these days KIVA has stopped lending to Nepal due to political instability.
But for sure effort put in by a single individual is very admirable. Keep up the good work to support the local people in a small scale.
Hello portlander,
It;s nice to hear that you are orginally from Nepal. I am sorry to hear that your organization has stopped to provide micro finance in women because of political instability. I know many organizations has been forced to close their organization from different political parties. Sorry to hear that…
Sure, I willl and thanks for your inspiring word.
Sunita!!
Indeed you have come a long way. I admire your courage and determination in changing the mindset of men and women alike.
You are pure and true to the core.
Looking forward to meet you next week.
Dear Kashfia,
Thank you so much for admiring my determinatin to bring positive change in my community. My work is a small initiative to make a difference. I cannot wait to meet you in person. C u on saturday.
Sunita it seems that you are the only that replies. Then that means that you are open mind. Great! Keep like this and I expect many more of you.
Hello Guillermo,
Yeah, I am also feeling the same. Please let me know what do you want to know more so that I can write.. looking forward to hear from you..
Thank you so mcuh for your interest in my work.
Sunita, Nepal has been always a mystery for many people. Some Hollywood pictures have shown Nepal. Literally you live in the top of the world. Wisdom is catalogued as ancient. But as many civilizations women are left behind. History only speaks of monks, warriors, kings and the such. But until now I haven´t heard of a special woman. I put you an example, Hypathias, who was a woman out of her epoch. What I try to tell you that maybe you will be a modern Hypathias. Do you have knowledge of such story?
Hypatia? The women Greek philosopher? I’m sorry to intervene in your comment sir. I just couldn’t help it seeing a familiar name. Yes, Sunita does indeed have the qualities to become a modern Hypatia.
Rahman thank you for amplying my comment. But also to add more, I ask Sunita if she has knowledge of the story of a Nepalese woman that has been history in Nepal. It could be in ancient times or modern times. History surely wrote by men, almost misses the achievements of women. But until now few women write History. I mean that I haven´t heard of notorious historians that are women. Maybe it is time to see this.
Rahman Kashfia,firstly Sunita is a girl !!
Secondly,can you please furnish me with more details about the word HYPATIA?
Ahh sorry about that, I should have mentioned girl instead of a women I wrote that Hypatia is women greek philosopher, the only women greek philosopher during the times of socrates and aristotle. She came out of her bubble and spoke about what she believes in, but sadly she was brutally murdered for her outspokenness.
I want to open a small business but i didn’t found a support! so can someone give an advise 🙂
It was certainly pleasing to come across your approaches on redoing the uneven knotting of contemporary social fabric of Nepal.
Being a Nepali myself, i was glad to know young people like you were taking necessary initiatives to overcome the crucial misconceptions on subject of gender inequality.
Due to the existence of this derailed perception of gender in my community, i found girls we quite hesitant on enrolling themselves in different activities during my school days. They always seemed tangled in some sort of ethical dilemma. And so was the case with women.But surely, i do have encountered some influential figures in due course of time.
May you succeed in achieving your goals.
with best regards,
RM Pandey.