Strength TogetHER 14 - Session 4

31st August 2021

“There is nothing rarer, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.” “The human body is the best work of art.” “Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so.”

To create positivity and help people to come out of their comfort zone, we organized this webinar through the zoom session on 31st August 2021 on the topic ' Love Your Body". This session was moderated by Ms. Niharika Mainali who leads Changing Stories Nepal as Executive Director. This session was very interesting and emotional with the contribution of 3 speakers. The guidance and support from our moderator were beyond the words. Our moderator chose to speak and suggest the speakers after their stories each.

Our first speaker was a young, beautiful woman who had enormous self-confidence. She liked to introduce herself as a chubby girl and not a fat person. She explained how she was body-shamed every time during her high school and early schooling days. She mentioned how she struggled with it every day at first but she could get over the fact that the world is cruel and she started loving her body. She confirms that she is in love with every inch of her body and will not be affected by the negativity. As she spoke her heart out with the utmost confidence our moderator praised her for being the bravest. 

Our second speaker talked about her insecurities and her experiences being a 4’8 girl of 19 years old. She shared her along with her family members' experience of not having the perfect body type was mentioned by the world. She shared how her parents used to get scared and how to feel used to feel uncomfortable to be what she is.  She is still struggling with her body type and the judgments from the people but she has accepted the fact that she is not anything more but beautifully different than the majority. As she claimed to have height issues, our moderator supported her and tried relating the scenario with her real-life experience. She made the speaker feel so homely and tried making the session feel comfortable for the rest of the speakers. 

Our third and last speaker for the session was a very bold girl who shared her own experiences of being overweight. She shared how she struggled with the word “Fat” and “Ugly” everywhere she went. She also mentioned her mental health and other health issues were severe due to bullying and judgmental people. She was so worried about her body that she wouldn’t eat for days. In this time period, our moderator contributed a lot to help the speaker. She consoled her every moment and asked her to keep flaunting her curves no matter how people are going to judge. 

At the end of the session, many questions were raised to our moderator regarding the body negativity and other curiosity. The most beautiful part of the session was our first speaker sang a song related to body positivity and cherishing the bond of sisterhood which felt so pure just being inside the session. With her song and some insights from the core team member of Lokopakar Ms. Barsha Tamang, the session officially ended. 

Written by - Shreeti K.C (Cohort Coordinator)

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