WAWCAS welcomes three new Local Program Leaders to its team
WAWCAS continues to grow, and as part of that we are happy to welcome three new employees to our team in Nepal. Our three new employees are all undergoing or have just completed their training to become certified WAWCAS Local Program Leaders (LPLs), and here they give a short presentation of themselves. Let us give a warm welcome to Rojmon Chaudhary, Anjali Shrestha, and Rita Karki.
Committing myself to be a responsible LPL
I am Rojmon Chaudhary from Tikapur, Kailali. Having completed my Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from GoldenGate Int’l College, I am currently pursuing my degree in Counseling Psychology at Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus, Kathmandu. I have recently moved to Lamjung and am now working as a Local Program Leader (LPL) in the WAWCAS program in the Tanahu district.
I believe that my strength is my attitude, as I like to take challenges and believe that I CAN do it. My positive mindset allows me to take both success and failure in a balanced way, and I look at weakness as a chance for improvement. I never neglect an opportunity for improving myself. I believe in myself, and I believe in hard work and I strive for perfection in everything.
I feel so lucky to be a part of the WAWCAS Program, and I am very happy to share my feelings about the training I get, as I learn many things besides the WAWCAS program. Firstly, I am very much thankful for the WAWCAS team, for their support, for making a family environment. The whole team has been so helpful and supportive.
The training has taught me many things, but mainly I have learned about the WAWCAS Program, which has connected a strong bond between the women. It helped me to understand poverty, and social and ethnic issues. During the training, I learned about the different IBT (Issue Based Training) topics, which are very effective to reduce the issues in the society. I learned about time management and its importance, how saving is important in everyone’s lives, how to manage the cash flow, how to do effective home visits and how to conduct effective meetings. I also learned many behavioral activities from different trainings – such as how to tackle the situation if any problem arises and how to change and implement the strategy on the spot.
Besides all of the above, I also learned that working with social work in the field is much different from what theory says. As an LPL, I desperately want to support this program for its better success. My theoretical training has been completed but my practical training is going on, each day I am learning with my senior LPLs and the members. My short-term goal is I want to grow my career along with the organization’s growth and my long-term goal is I want to be one of the reasons for the success of the organization and I want to see this organization as a benchmark to other organizations.
Thank You!
Hard work BUT many opportunities…
I am Anjali Shrestha and I am working as a Local Program Leader in WAWCAS in the Tanahu district. I have a bachelor’s degree in social work, but so far I do not have any experience of working in the field, except for my internships during my studies. Working in WAWCAS, is hard work with a lot of potential.
We need to take 17 months training to become professional LPLs. Three months is based in Kathmandu and the remaining period takes place with other senior LPLs in Lamjung. The journey of the first 3 months was really interesting. At first it was all-confusing. Then, as the days passed, we learned more and more about the WAWCAS Program. The environment at the office is refreshing, even family like. We share our thoughts freely and there is a presence of transparency at the office.
I learned a lot of things during my training period like: how does it bring change in the life of underprivileged women to get long-term training and supervision in basic business skills, in social competencies and in getting understandings of their civil rights? How the program supports the women in developing a cooperative and savings and loan group, and in sending their children to school regularly? We learned everything during the training.
Being a professional Local Program Leader is a tough shell to crack. But through constant demo practice and training on how to work with the women and learning the kind of language we have to use, the observations we need to do, and the listening we need to do to understand their situation – we develop our competence. The WAWCAS Program steps are taught thoroughly. We learn how to fill in the minute book, the ledger book, and collect saving and invest the saving.
The first 3 months training made me a different person. Beforehand I did not know what real work means. After completion of the 3 months of training out of the 17-month certification module training, I am confident that I will become a good LPL and able to inspire and train the women.
Committing myself to be a responsible LPL
I am Rita Karki, a 24 year-old enthusiastic girl from Bhaktapur. I have done my bachelor’s degree in social work majoring in English and I am currently doing Master’s degree in sociology. I am very interested in dealing with different kinds of people and society.
I was hired by SLISHA WAWCAS, 4 months ago as a Local Program Leader. During the period of 4 months, we learned many useful things. During training, we learned that we should give importance to every relation and goal. We should identify our role and set goals accordingly and should be able to manage time accordingly. We should always be positive in life.
What I have learned in the training is that we should know about our own strengths and weaknesses. After knowing our weakness we should also know how to overcome them, as while working, many obstacles may arise, and we have to be able to change our obstacles to opportunities.
Furthermore, during the training we also learned that when conducting any meeting, there should always be both rational and experiential objectives. Being a social worker we should always be active listeners and when working in the community we should understand their perspectives and respect everyone’s views and ideas.
We were taught that a common reason for a business to fail is because it lacks proper planning, coordination between family members and not having ideas about doing the business – such as where to do business, identifying the target customers, how to attract the customers, advertising the business etc. Knowing about these things is very important to run a profit-motivated business.
We should always try to be an inspirational person and role model in society, and for that we should have certain qualities. After each and every meeting, we should do self-review. This helps in our personal and professional development.
Personally, I like the concept of learning through different games as every game has messages and objectives. This is more effective as the women themselves participate in the different games. As a Local Program Leader, I will try to bring change in the life of women through Issue Base Training and involving them in business so that they can earn for themselves. I will appreciate the woman who has done good things or is implying what she has learned, as I am sure that this will help to encourage other women too.