4 Municipal level Musahar Women’s Empowerment Network Committee has been formed in target four municipalities (Haripur, Barathawa, Chandranagar and Basbariya) of Sarlahi under “Strengthening gender-responsive local governance in Nepal” implemented by SAP Nepal with financial support of UNDEF in different dates of September and October 2022. Each of these 4 networks has 11 members. The major purpose of the formation of the municipal network is to strengthen the voice of the Musahar women and conduct municipal level interaction and social campaigns along with further developing leadership capacity.
During the establishment of the Municipal level committee, Musahar women with leadership qualities among 32 WoMEF groups with more than 1500 members were selected for the positions of Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Joint Secretary and members for each of the 4 committee. Laxmi Paswan of Haripur, Shivakali Devi Majhi of Chandranagar, Sarita Majhi of Barathawa, and Sita Majhi of Basbariya was nominated as Chair of the respective Municipalities. In the coming days, it is anticipated that these committees will be the representative of the voice of other Musahar women to pressurize the service providers and elected representatives for the upliftment and development of the Musahar community. In addition, these committee will also lobby for the dalit rights to citizenship and vital registration to concerned stakeholders along with conducting mass awareness campaigns raising issues of the backward communities.