Women LEAD Nepal
Sarun Khadka
Women LEAD, Nepal
ConnectHER's August Project Partner is Women LEAD Nepal, an organization that supports and equips future female leaders. Here is the story of one!
I am Sarun Khadka, 2020 YWPLI Fellow and now a graduate student at University of Alberta, Canada. I joined Women LEAD’s Young Women Political Leadership Institute (YWPLI) in 2020 with the goal of bringing transactional changes in my understanding level of the political dimension. It has been a life-changing journey for me ever since. After the completion of the program, I also worked as a Development Intern at Women LEAD Nepal. Leadership was never an innate trait for me, it was completely learned and adapted throughout my life. During YWPLI, I got the chance to network with 19 other fellows; who were so unique in their own ways. As a part of the module, I was paired with an incredible mentor who guided me to build my career path and empowered me to be a visionary persona. One of my best modules of YWPLI is the one-month long internship. I got an opportunity to intern at the Federal Parliament Secretariat under a member of Parliament. Interning under Hon. Binda Pandey, I not only gained knowledge on the working environment of parliament but also I expanded my networking parallely. After the completion of the internship, me and my co-fellow Sirishma Ghimire were invited to enroll on a follow-up internship to conduct research on the topic ‘Evaluation of the Experience of Five Years Tenure of Female Representative at Local Level Government’.
I believe apart from our hard work and dedication, the whole credit solely goes to the Women LEAD for making it possible. Programs like YWPLI is pivotal in changing the career path of the emerging youths like me who seek to accomplish greatness but lack opportunities. When I reflect and think about my fellow 2020 YWPLI peers, each fellow is doing something significant in their respective fields. I’ve realised that the common ground for all us is that, via YWPLI, we got a platform to enhance our leadership skills. With my educational background in Forestry, I want to be a woman in STEM but also want to work with and for the community simultaneously. I am very passionate about working with youths. As an alumni at Women LEAD, there are plenty of opportunities, and so I am proud to have life-long relationship with Women LEAD. Undoubtedly, my engagement with Women LEAD has advanced my transferable skills which I will treasure and utilise throughout my life. I can’t be thankful enough for empowering the life of hundreds of young women and moulding them to be a changemaker. I like to believe that my overall experience as a YWPLI Fellow was one of the major reasons for me to crack a graduate scholarship in one of the top universities in the world. Women LEAD helped me transform myself into a leader. Thank you Women LEAD.
