UDAAN 1 - Session 1

 

 

June 20,2021.

“When it comes to swag there’s no gender involved.”- Young Thug 

“UDAAN'' is the first gender-inclusive cohort formed by Lokopakar. Lokopakar; a youth organization that facilitates every interested youth to a new demanding world of challenges and obstacles. An organization that helps you to gain knowledge and extract a significant skill i.e Leadership. “UDAAN '' Chapter 1 is conducted in collaboration with the Leo Club of Kathmandu Chaabhil which also aspires youth to use their creative mind for something fruitful to the society. 

Our first session i.e introductory session was first held on June 20, 2020, via Zoom. The session included fifteen participants from Leo Club. The session took place from 5 pm to 6:15 pm. At first, I was nervous because I had no idea how the session would take place. And to be honest, I thought it was a formal program like the way our school conducts online classes. The nervousness made me give up but then I thought to GO FOR IT.

The session started with the formal introduction of all participants and also about the topics they desired to talk about in the sessions. After that, Prastuti Bhattarai gave us a brief introduction about the whole 10 session journey and how they were to be conducted. She provided us with safe space and helped us ease our tension . And honestly, I myself would have been worried if they wouldn’t mention how open and safe space it is to freely share our story without worrying. 

The topics that our friends wished to talk about were: 

• LGBTQ 
• Mental Health 
• Political Crisis 
• Covid 19 

Whilst, some of our participants were excited to talk about any topic they were given an opportunity to. After that, we were given an ice-breaking game which our participants happily participated in. The game was a treasure hunt where we were told to collect toothpaste, something blue, a vegetable, a key, and a sanitizer. Everyone played it with great enthusiasm and we were very much satisfied with the results of it. 

In a nutshell, it was a wonderful experience where we had a lot of fun and we also expect the session to be fun and interesting like the first one. I hope we as  work together well and make this Chapter 1 of “UDAAN”, a successful journey. 

Written by-Kripa Bhandari  (Chapter Coordinator)