When: 30th November 2021 at 18:00 CET

Where: University of Luxembourg (Campus Belval Esch-sur-Alzette / Covid Check event) and online 

English – Spanish – English (on Zoom) and English-French-English interpretations (for the live audience at the University of Luxembourg) will be provided.

You can join the lecture by:

• coming to the University of Luxembourg. Please register by sending an email to Kapuscinski2021@uni.lu.
• coming to the online event on Zoom – REGISTER HERE
• following livestreaming from the event at kapuscinskilectures.eu
• asking your questions to Bandana Rana via Zoom or Twitter using #KAPTalks hashtag

Finding your voice and identity for many women in South Asia including Nepal is like climbing Mt. Everest the highest peak in the world – not an easy task with deeply embedded patriarchal values and gender norms. Violence against women particularly domestic violence is the biggest deterrent to women’s advancement and development.  However, with a vibrant women’s movement and civil society activism scaling this mountainous hurdle can be possible. It is a shared collective vision of inclusive development that is required to make gender equality a reality.

Inclusive empowerment and equality must be at the heart of all efforts to ensure sustainable development. The talk will feature valuable examples of bottom up movement building, breaking the culture of silence, harnessing the potential of the media and enhancing critical and collaborative partnership for transforming the roadmap to inclusive development. It will highlight experiences of linking efforts from local to global and global to local for scaling the hurdles of rising inequalities. The journey continues – to achieving transformative change that is fair and sustainable and building a future where no rights are trampled and no one is left behind.

The lecture is hosted by the University of Luxembourg and Aide à l’Enfance de l’Inde et du Népal (AEIN).

Bandana Rana from Nepal is a member of the UN CEDAW Committee since 2017. She is also a member of the UNFPA High Level Commission on ICPD25. Her experience spans three decades of active engagement in promoting women’s rights and gender equality through the different organizations and networks she has founded and led. She has worked from the grassroots to the national, regional and global level leading advocacy, research, and public outreach and community mobilisation programs. Her many years of dedicated work has been in the area of violence against women, gendered conflict transformation, peace building and engendered media particularly through the two organisations she co-founded and led, Saathi and Sancharika Samuha. She is the former chair of the National Women’s Commission of Nepal.

Ms. Rana is the recipient of the Woman of Distinction Award 2016 conferred by the NGO CSW Committee for her dedicated work and contribution to gender equality globally. She was also a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Group for the Global Study on the implementation of UNSCR 1325. She was the member of the UN Women Global Civil Society Advisory Group from 2012 to 2015.

Ms. Rana is the chair of the board of directors of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) and former Chair of the Global Network of Women Shelters.