Dhukha Niwaran Guthi
Very brave people running this NGO which got sustained for fifty years in a place like Nepal !!. My hats off to the person late Til Bahadur lokshum and his friends for humanitarian service, advocacy and social development at the time when only only very few social service organizations existed under Sanstha Darta Ain, 2034 B S in district administration, Kathmandu and affiliated with social service council (no 15, 1977 A D)
I had an opportunity to speak to 50 girls and Women in the ICT sector. Some of them mentioned in the speech that we all won't be there if Tmila had not existed. She always used to raise voice about why girls couldn't compete in the technical field and guardians opted for non- STEM sector. She always raised the voice of why girls are not provided with hostel facilities in Nepal.
The program of this NGO made me think back to my past life. We six sisters wouldn't have been there serving in various sectors if we didn't have a radical thinker mother Heera Devi Yami who fought against all the social norms to transform the society, always risking life from those who dominated and rolled the innocent Nepalese society from her early days of 1940s. Her radical nature has been born from the extreme sufferings she had gone through in her life journey facing problems of conservative society then and sufferings of people from then the tyranny Rana rulers of her and her ancestors' times.
Heera Devi Yami used to be the first lady to be promoting STEM programs during the 1950s for girls when the conservative society then didn't have boy students studying STEM courses.
Daughters of such mothers used to be rejected for practicing activities against social norms during her days. After she passed away in 1970 her friends took many years to understand her desire for change. All her seven children were not of the age to understand these risky social norms of the society. Through published articles on Heera Devi the children understood the pain Heera Devi Yami went through going against the social norms for social and political transformation in Nepal.
For digital transformation in Nepal social, economic and political transformation is important. For such transformation women activists roles are important and people do miss many actors like Heera Devi Yami specially in rural areas.