Women Awareness Center Nepal

WACN is involved in advocacy activities at local, national and international levels. After recognizing their potential to organize, women from the project areas begin performing advocacy work on their own. For example, many start to lobby for funds from local governments to run gender-friendly projects in their respective communities. Recently, the Nepalese government allocated funds for the development of cooperatives. Ten cooperatives of Kavre and Makwanpur District received that funding after applying.

 
WACN has organized and participated in many demonstrations with other women’s NGO’s on a variety of women rights’ issues, including women’s property rights, abortion rights, gender equality, and food security. Most recently WACN women protested the high market price and artificial hoarding of essential food items. 

The United Nations 4th World Conference on Women was held in Beijing, China in 1995. Two women from WACN, President Prativa Subedi and Executive Member Meena Karki participated in the NGO conference. In 1994 and 1995 Prativa Subedi also joined the Committee on the Status of Women for the United Nations. Prativa and Meena were deeply moved to see gender issues, particularly violence against women, recognized, and worldwide policies adopted to address these concerns. 

Twelve critical areas to promote the empowerment of women were targeted for action at the Beijing Conference. WACN programs, which focus on all-around development in women''s lives through trainings, literacy classes and income- generation schemes, emphasize many of these areas.