FOUNDATION FOR THE SOLIDARITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
How It's Working
Lessons Learned

Organizational Vision

Renu Sharma, founder of the Foundation for the Solidarity and Development of Women, also known as the Women's Foundation, established the organization to work toward the elimination of discrimination against Nepalese women, especially widows. Nepalese widows face brutal acts because they have few means of protection or support. They are often called Bokshi, Nepali for witch, for the simple “crime” of being a widow. In other cases, young women are sold into slave-like conditions. The Foundation also works to strengthen the legal institutions available to Nepalese women, provide shelter and guidance to women who have suffered abuse, and train women in new skills to reach self-sufficiency

Citizen Base Strategy

Plan awareness events; let fundraising follow

The Women’s Foundation bases the cornerstone of its work on increased awareness of violence against women. Women teach each other and subsequently the broader society how to better respect their individual talents, rather than judge women by their marital status. Participating women then bring their expertise and experience into the community as a means of sustaining the foundation’s operations. The Women’s Foundation has literally taken its message to the streets, performing street plays about women's issues and witch-hunting in villages and cities. The funds raised from theater and dance performances benefit the Foundation and other charities throughout the region. In one particular instance, a Woman’s Foundation performance sent orphaned children to a local school funded by money earned from the performance.

In another effort to help breakdown traditional stereotypes, Sharma organized a fundraising event that turned out to be the first-ever Nepalese women's soccer game. All proceeds from the game—coordinated and organized by the widowed women—went to support the Women's Foundation. Over 5,000 people attended the event. According to Sharma, “That is what is called, ‘playing to your audience to meet your goal.’”

The programs at the Women’s Foundation also serve to develop the women’s public skills and self-confidence, invaluable traits in social and work environments. Increased confidence allows women to return to their communities from which they were ostracized and create a new life. Each woman who succeeds in regaining public acceptance becomes an inspiration for other women who find themselves in similar straits.

Financial Benefits Reap Social Benefits

Combining cultural change and sustainability is also part of the process within the foundation’s shelter for abused women. The shelter provides medical care, counseling services, and classes led by other women in the shelter. Women learn valuable skills such as weaving, cooking, goat and pig raising and papermaking. The key to the program’s success is that the training is neither hard work nor toil, but useful, fun, and profitable. Products created in this program are later sold in a Dhaka clothing and craft shop established by the Women's Foundation. Women employees, who have sought sanctuary within the shelter’s protective arms, maintain the shop. And because of their personal experience, the shop employees serve as successful examples to their customers that effective alternatives to superstition and abuse exist.

How It’s Working

• The Women’s Foundation is funded almost entirely by local resources.

• Over 500 women have sought shelter and training.

• Public performances have raised awareness and provided new jobs for women.

• A revolving micro-finance fund program for women within the shelter has generated over a dozen new businesses.

• New businesses created through micro-finance serve as a constant reminder to the community of the Foundation’s message.

• Sustainable operations allowed the Foundation to create campaigns and programs for election observation, legal assistance for women, community education, literacy training, and environmental education programs

Lessons Learned

• Don’t be intimidated by working with a controversial subject. By sharing knowledge and mixing the message with operational needs, the Women’s Foundation simultaneously facilitated education and fundraising.

• Let the organization diversify itself as it expands. As long as the core mission remains true, the diversity of a mission’s multiple variations builds on success.

• Don’t shy away from profit-making. The Women’s Foundation found that as long as its stakeholders support decisions made by the organization, it is appropriate to extract funds for your services to sustain the overall organization.

• Expand the notion of sustainability. Sustainability entails more than financial stability; sustainability involves engaging other parties to spread the organization’s message out into the world.