“Interaction Program on Disability Friendly Local Mechanism and Promotion of Access to Justice for Girls and Women with Disabilities at the Local Level_Lumbini Province”

Dang, Nepal.

17th June 2023.

Access Planet Organization in the funding support of Women’s Fund Asia (WFA)- Kagaapay fund conducted a half-day interaction program on “Disability Friendly Local Mechanism and Promotion of Access to Justice for Girls and Women with Disabilities at the Local Level.” Fifty-five participants including local level people’s representatives, government officials working at the local level, and the organizations of persons with disabilities from two local governments including Tulsipur Sub-metropolitan City and Shantinagar Rural Municipality were present in the interaction program. The interaction program aimed to create a platform for OPDs to share the issues of women with disabilities, sensitize local-level representatives on the issues of girls and women with disabilities locally and provide suggestions and recommendations for further planning programs and budgeting in this sector for the next fiscal year.

Ms. Jyotsana Prajapati, Program Manager welcomed all the distinguished guests, participants and clarified about the objective of the program and introduced access planet among them. After the introduction and welcome, Ms. Laxmi Nepal, founder of organization moderated the interaction program. Then, Ms. Anita Thapa Magar, a local advocacy committee member of Access Planet , made a presentation on “The Way Forward for Disability Inclusive Local Government and Promotion of Access to Justice for Girls and Women with Disabilities" where local representatives were sensitized about the issues of girls and women with disabilities. And after the presentation the interaction program was moved on with the sharing of the issues by participants from organizations of persons with disabilities. Similarly, local representatives also highlighted some of the works being conducted in the sector of disabilities and the program was concluded by gathering the commitments from the local level representatives.

This half-day interaction with the local government representatives and OPD representatives was very impactful in creating platform for finding solutions for addressing the issues of girls and women with disabilities at the local level. These types of advocacy interaction programs play an important role in making duty-bearers at the local level accountable in addressing issues of these girls and women in their own communities.

Output:-

The primary outputs of the discussion are listed in points as follows:

1. Local government representatives were sensitized about the issues of girls and women with disabilities.
2. The event served as a learning platform to share from different municipalities so that best practices on disability-related works could be scaled up.
3. Commitments were gathered from the government representatives on addressing the issues of persons with disabilities via programs and budgets at the local level.
4. Access Planet’s relationship with local government representatives, civil service officers, and OPDs has been strengthened.