Author Archives: ASD

Justice and Post 2015 Development Agenda in Nepal

A one day interaction program on ‘Justice and Post 2015 Development Framework in Nepal’ was organized with civil society members on June 4, 2014 at Lalitpur. Organizations and ndividuals working on justice, human rights and women’s right issues discussed on the Post 2015 discourse at the international community level and pursued to develop a collective strategy to advocate for ‘Justice’ and ‘Legal Identity’ as one of the stand alone and integrated goals to be included in Post 2015 Development Framework. In the program, Joint Secretary of National Planning Commission, Officiating Secretary of National Human Rights Commission and Chair of ASD Board were also present at the discussion.

Regional Conference of Human Rights Defenders

ASD Human Rights Program supported the Regional Conference of Human Rights Defenders organized at Biratnagar on 7 and 8 June 2014. About 250 human rights defenders from 14 districts of the eastern region of Nepal attended the conference. The conference aimed to build synergy among the human rights defenders of the eastern region for the effective protection, promotion and fulfillment of human rights. At the end of the conference, 11 point declaration focused on the demand and challenges of the human rights defenders in the regions was released.

At the same time, the defenders also demanded local election to be held immediately to mitigate the vacuum in the local level and effective policing to minimize violence against women at the community level. Senior Human Rights Activist, Sushil Pyakurel stressed on the need for political parties to become human rights friendly and accountable towards the past human rights violations to end the culture of impunity.

Discussion on ‘Education Act (8th Amendment)’ and proposed bill for ‘Free and Compulsory Education’

ASD in collaboration with Education Journalist Group (EJG) organized a one-day interaction on “Education Act (8th Amendment) and proposed bill for Free and Compulsory Basic Education” on May 22, 2014 at Kathmandu. Representatives from Ministry of Education, Department of Education, Teacher unions, teachers, school management committee, organizations working on education and journalists participated in the discussion program. The discussion primarily focused on the provisions to be amended on the education act and its implications. Likewise, the proposed bill on free and compulsory education was discussed based on its objective and the existing realities at the implementation level.

Human Rights Orientation

Women’s Program together with Human Rights (HR) Program of ASD organized a two day program on May 7 and 8, 2014 to orient the youth and teachers of Tandi and Padampur VDC-Chitwan district on human rights issue. The orientation program helped 42 participants from the VDC to understand the issues of violence against women and to be able to combat the violence in their community.

National Level Grantee Meeting

ASD organized the National Grantee Meeting from 25-28 March 2014 at Lalitpur to revisit the work of all the partners in the previous year and develop strategies and activities for this year. The changing socio-political context of the country in terms of promoting open society and democratic values served as the foundation for the strategy and subsequent activities. 22 organizations from across the country working on the core issues of human rights, media, education and women’s rights participated in the meeting. During the program, ASD shared about the changing times and context in the Open Society Foundations and the importance of acknowledging the role and responsibilities of the ambassadors of democracy and human rights.

Besides, the importance to reflect upon one’s organization, its growth and the path it has traversed over the years was highlighted as an integral part of growth for the organizations.The meeting also focused on revisiting the work of the grantees’ network on the issue of election process observation. Based on the experience and learning from the election observation the previous year, the discussion focused on the need to work for establishment of periodic election as a regular phenomenon to establish democracy and stability in the country. On this ground, the meeting also developed its working strategy within the broader framework of ‘Political Integrity & Accountability’. A detailed plan of action was finalized to achieve the objectives set out within this framework.In addition to this, the grantees further discussed within their thematic programs and prioritized their common agendas within each theme and developed action plan to formulate and implement the activities.