Atoot

Representing Atoot at the roundtable. 🇳🇵🤝🇬🇧

Atoot's Programme Manager Sharanya was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion hosted by UK Minister for Indo-Pacific and Equalities , bringing together women leaders and changemakers from across Lumbini.

The conversation centered on local leadership, voice, and agency. Sharanya spoke honestly about what we see on the ground — an interlocking mesh of challenges where gender discrimination feeds into child marriage, early school dropout, and a near-total lack of agency of girls and women over their own lives. But she also shared what gives us hope: the change we are witnessing every day. Girls at Atoot who are building confidence, finding their voice, and beginning to see themselves as future leaders — something many of them never had the courage to imagine before. If she can see it, she can be it.

It was equally inspiring to be in a room full of remarkable Nepali women doing extraordinary grassroots work — including Kalpana Harijan, Deputy Mayor and serving Acting Mayor of Lumbini Cultural Municipality, whose initiatives for female empowerment have been quietly transformative for the region.

Sharanya also had the privilege of speaking with the UK Ambassador to Nepal H.E. Rob Fenn and British Council Nepal Country Director Rustom Mody — a meaningful opportunity to share Atoot's work at a diplomatic level.

Grateful to and for including Atoot's voice in this conversation. This is exactly the kind of space grassroots organisations need to be in. 💚