It’s been almost a year since you won the prize. And how is Project Sparśa going?
It’s a big question! A lot of things have happened in my personal life with many ups and downs and also in the project. So right now we have stabilised. Soon after I won I moved to Bangladesh to study which was a big deal because I was handling many things. So we had to hire a manager who was doing a lot of things that I wasn’t able to do without being in Nepal. After that, our co-founder and field coordinator had a life-threatening accident and was in ICU for a week and took three months to recover. It had a huge impact on our project with me out of the country and the co-founder not able to work.
We found the manager at the right moment as she was able to handle many of the things on her own. She had good experience and was a big help. I’m really thankful for that. Once the co-founder could come back to work things started to go back on track. Our factory was being constructed and this is where the money from the Iris Prize went. Right now we are working on making this factory operational.
Project Sparśa operates from two factories, one that processes the banana fibre and one that produces the pads. The fibre factory has been operational since last year. We now have two fibre factory operators, a young man and a woman, working together. In the communities where our fibre factory is based, it’s not common for women to have a life outside their homes. It is always emotional to see them working together on Project Sparśa not only to improve their families’ finances but also to do something good for their community.
It was more feasible for us to have the pad factory in a place where it’s easier for us to distribute the pads – in the middle of Nepal. Whereas the fibre factory is in a remote area surrounded by banana farms. We also had many opportunities to be in different areas, but we didn’t want to give another opportunity for businessmen to profit from our project and wanted to collaborate directly with the farmers. We are supporting the community where it’s needed and the situation for women is really bad compared to other regions in Nepal. Because women are not allowed to go outside of their house. They have so many restrictions and you will see when you go there that women are not present in the outside environment at all. In our factory, we have recruited young people and especially women. It’s a big deal. Giving them the financial opportunity when most of their siblings and peers are having to go abroad for foreign employment.
From next month we have to start pad production and it’s a big deal for us because we have women empowerment at our heart. I was 19 years old when I started Project Sparśa and I didn’t have a University degree. Having mentors has been a huge help. Most of the things that we do are based on trial and error methods. We figure out other ways to do things, try to get learnings from workshops or try to talk with people who have done it before.
We have also been delayed because of the Nepal Administration and working with the local government to get the construction of the factory approved. What we are doing is completely new in Nepal and the administration and politics are so unpredictable.
So there have been a lot of challenges but it has been really helpful to work with Mike from Open Briefing. I am really grateful for what I got and was able to learn from our work together especially how to draft our first Risk Management Policy. Now everyone is prepared in case of an accident or small injury that might happen on site. This has been the biggest thing I have gotten from the Iris Project and I’m really grateful.
That’s such an amazing feedback. Thanks so much. And we love working with Mike and Open Briefing. We think they’re amazing and we had a call with him a while ago and he just was saying how impressed he is with Project Sparśa. You’ve gone through so many hurdles to get where you are and the delays are part of the journey and it’s amazing that you keep pushing through and learning about it. Well done!
We are also working on the packaging logo with the MakerChange Studio thanks to The Iris Projects’ Climate Communications Programme. We have our brand identity now and are working to translate the packaging of the pad into Nepalese. We are also working on an advocacy and awareness campaign right which is where most of my time is going. I am designing the Sparśa Ambassador Program to be a year-long education program led by young people from different communities. We will train them and provide them with resources and skills. The ambassadors will know their community needs best in the context of menstrual health and access.
That sounds really interesting. Where do you see yourself going in the next year?
I don’t know, there is so much to learn about the development work. I would like to transition out of traditional development work where it’s always the West giving money and we need to implement it. People from the Global South hardly have a place at the decision-making table. Projects are designed for us and not by us which creates a cycle of dependence and I think that local people should be empowered to create the solutions themselves. So for me, I want to question that and I want to challenge this model and I want to tell them that look this is also how you can do development work.
So right now we are working together with Prakash Lab from Stanford University and collecting all the information related to how to produce a fibre. And if there are other people who are interested in doing a similar project we want to share that for free. We have created Sparśa as a blueprint model that can be replicated in other regions either inside or outside of Nepal. Now that we are closer to our production, our next goal will be to make Sparśa financially viable but also to work on the blueprint model which means a lot of work related to a database which could later be shared for free with individuals and organizations aiming to do similar projects.
What advice would you have for people in your position, future prize winners and young people working in the gender and climate space?
I think it helped me to have a strong reason why I wanted to do what I was doing. WHY is the mantra that I follow in my life that has helped me a lot. It’s very important for me to ask Why to get reasons for many things that I do in life. It’s easier to get broken like when I was dealing with the government to become a non-profit company and they did not see me or respect me, they only spoke to my lawyer. After coming back from there, I was so unmotivated. I would question why I’ve been doing this.
But it is easier to keep going because I know why, I know what I’m doing and that is what is important to me. I would suggest that if you don’t have that reason yet then maybe reflect on that and think about what would help you a lot to fight in this journey because it’s not easy. To have trust and be a young person in this space. It helps to prepare for your battles and helps to keep you running. It’s just my way and I don’t think everyone should go through that way, but it’s just what works for me.
That’s really impactful advice. Thank you so much Dipisha. I think that’s amazing.
I’m really grateful for everything that we have got from the Iris Project, the support we have received is so much more than the financial support. I haven’t gotten this support from any other prize and this is the only one that I would really recommend everyone to apply for.
Connect with Project Sparśa
