Under the “Strengthening gender-responsive governance in Nepal” implemented by SAP Nepal with the financial support from UNDEF, to meet one of the objectives of “Enhanced capacity and networking of marginalized Musahar women to increase their participation in local governance process and planning.”, REFLECT session has been designed for creating platform for continuous engagement of the Musahar women in learning and leadership development process. In the first round of the reflect session, training on local government planning process was provided to 1525 members of 32 WoMEF groups of four municipalities (Haripur, Barathawa, Chandranagar and Basbariya) of Sarlahi. Total of 32 session were conducted on local planning process on different dates from February to April 2022.
The facilitator sensitized the participants about the 7 steps of the local planning process, local government programs and plans, and settlement level plans. The facilitator also informed participants about the process and method of approaching in settlement level plans where Musahars could also submit their settlement level plans for development of their community. Through these sessions, the knowledge of the Musahar women on local planning program and budget has improved. As an immediate impact of the project, the Musahar women who were not socially active before is not visiting the respective ward and municipal offices for demanding programs and budget for the upliftment of their community after receiving various capacity building trainings and participating in stakeholders interactions. The ward chairs and municipal representatives participating in the event has also committed for provision of programs and budget for development of this community in coming days. Speaking at the event, Manoj Kumar Chaudhary (Ward chair, Haripur-7) said that budget has been allocated for building of temple and roads in Musahar community and has planning of allocating budget for animal husbandry and vegetable cultivation in this community.