18th July 2020
Lokopakar is a youth organization that focuses on
developing young buds professionally as well as personally. Lokopakar has been
running many different virtual programs like one-on-one mentoring, group
mentoring, and Strength togetHER.
Strength togetHER is a virtual session where girls come
together to share and hear stories. Continuing with the same enthusiasm of the
previous sessions, Strength togetHER cohort 1 successfully completed its fifth
session as well. The session took place on 18th July 2020, Saturday.
Different from the rest of the sessions, this time we had
two moderators related to the field of mental health. We had Rosy Karna ma'am,
Psy.D. in Mental Health and Sweta Gautam ma'am, who has currently finished her
final year MBBS and is aiming to become a psychiatrist.
Starting with the sessions, we were extremely excited
as we had two wonderful moderators. Keeping the field of expertise of our
moderators in mind, we had chosen the topic "Invisible wounds". Each
of the speakers had to share their stories of those times when they felt hurt
and injured inside and not outside. We had 4 participants and almost all of
the stories left us with tears.
• Our first speaker had everyone sobbing and crying
with her story. It was of an old weak man with a ragged bag who walked with
staggering feet just to feed his child his lunch. Our speaker got really
emotional as she was raised by a single parent and she always considered that
the love from mum and dad is the same. That one incident left a void inside
her heart and she says that no one might ever fill it.
• Our second speaker shared her invisible wound which
is created by her past traumas. She was repeatedly body shamed and was made to feel uncomfortable about her body. She was so insecure that she gave up eating
at some point and was admitted to the hospital for 15 days. She had a mental
breakdown while sharing the story and we can imagine how it would have felt.
• Our third speaker shared her story about her broken
friendship which left a void in her heart. The long friendship was broken when
she couldn't balance her passion and friendship. She said that she was blamed
for breaking the whole friendship cause her friends pointed out that she was
changed and didn't give them enough time. Mostly, when we go through a sad
time, the first person we seek is our best friends. Thus, she said that it
was hard for her cause it was a revolt with her bestie itself.
• Our final speaker shared a story of her friend who was harassed by her fellow classmate. She was a dancer and went dancing classes where she met a guy friend who asked her to go out with him. Considering it as a sign of friendship, she agreed to go but when she met that guy he tried to harras and molest her. She escaped away from the spot and told the incident to our speaker. She still hasn't told her parents because her parents might ban her from going to dance classes. She came to know that her other friends were already a victim of the guy. Knowing this, they informed the dance teacher but surprisingly the dance teacher didn't take any strict actions but just changed the molester's shift. This was very disappointing to hear.
After hearing all the dreadful and hurting stories, our
moderators gave their opinions. Sweta Ma'am even shared her own story of being
body shamed and being mentally ill.
Advice from Rosy Ma'am and Sweta Ma'am:
• Speak and reach out.
• We are made up of everything that broke us.
• Crying is therapeutic.
• Always have the mantra of "So what" so that no one can have enough audacity to bring us down.
• Let go of toxic friends.
• Seek for help.
• • Embrace your wound.
• Don't expend time to fill the voids of our heart but
just move on.
• Clean negativity through meditation.
• Know your boundaries.
• Distance yourself from negativity.
This session was one of the longest sessions we had
yet the most fruitful. It had started at 4 pm and went on till 6 pm on the zoom app
with the active participation of 20 girls. It was an informative session where we learned
about many medical terms from Sweta Ma'am and life-necessary tips from Rosy
Karna Ma'am.
At the end of the sessions, we discussed we will
continue sharing our life experience for the coming session. Indeed an emotional
session with a lot of trust and care for each other. The session made us realize
we have come far in this journey of Strength TogetHER.
Written by: Aastha Shrestha
Edited by : Barsha Tamang (LOKOPAKAR)
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