One building, four days, with more than 320 events happening altogether and 8.000 young people from 165 countries. Wow! That’s huge. I was one of the young people from Nepal representing Dance4Life and my Trainers4Life team at Women Deliver 2019, the world’s largest conference on gender equality and the health, rights, and wellbeing of girls and women.
Blog from Rekha Trikhatri, Trainer4Life
My role was to facilitate selected activities from our Journey4Life and to make our presence and organization visible to the huge number of people. I had the opportunity to moderate an event with Robin from Dance4Life and to facilitate a session with my fellow Trainer4Life Sherifa from Ghana.
Interactive and engaging energizers
I supported the side event of the Right Here Right Now consortium hosted by Dance4Life on 2nd June. In the event, speakers from Senegal, Nepal, The Caribbean and Uganda shared their stories on Youth Leadership and related experiences. Following that, Hinke Nauta, Coordinator of the Taskforce for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shared her reflections. After the story sharing session, Robin and I co-facilitated the event by opening the floor to a discussion which we made very participatory and productive. The participants really enjoyed our interactive and engaging energizers and focused on how youth engagement can be made more meaningful. I was inspired by every single speaker and learned new things from them about effective advocacy and self-care.
Celebrate Mistakes and My Boundaries
To showcase the activities and objectives of the Get Up Speak Out (GUSO) partnership, Sherifa and I co-facilitated 2 activities from the Journey4Life empowerment model i.e. Celebrate Mistakes and My Boundaries. We delivered the session in the booth area at the IPPF stand on 5th June. A lot of people were roaming around so we managed to engage a good number of people. At first, Sherifa facilitated Celebrate Mistakes which encourages people to learn and embrace mistakes of yourself and others. The audience really loved it, making the discussion quite engaging. I facilitated the My Boundaries activity inviting individuals to become more aware of their personal boundaries and the role of gender norms in defining these, providing a taste of our empowerment model for young people. I am so thankful to finally meet and to facilitate with Sherifa as we are from different continents but within the same trainers community and chat often online.
Flash mob to launch new website
Together with Robin I joined a flash mob to launch the new website trainerslab.net. A platform where trainers working in the field of SRHR can connect with organisations to facilitate trainings or moderate sessions. When we were dancing I felt that we were reflecting our work and connecting through dance, it felt powerful. Also, there was a huge blackboard where they invited everyone to creatively express when they feel powerful, I drew the Dance4Life logo and the vision call “A world where all young people, choose to be healthy” That’s what gives me power and drawing it made me feel really proud.
Footprint in my heart
My overall experience from Women Deliver was amazing. I am very grateful to meet so many female leaders from all around the world. Their passion and dedication towards making an equal world for everyone is very inspiring. Now, I am more eager to work for young people after attending this conference. Women Deliver has left a footprint on my heart, motivating me to move forward on my journey to advocate for gender equality, young people following their dreams, feminist vibes and most of all, to use my power!
