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Women Around the World: Pratima Gurung · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
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  Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I High Radio. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and welcome to another women around the world and the
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  Speaker 1: amazing things they are doing and continue to do to
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  Speaker 1: fight for women's rights and advocacy. Yes, and we celebrate
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  Speaker 1: with all of them. Yes. Typically out on Tuesdays and
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  Speaker 1: whenever you listen. So today we are jumping to Nepal
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  Speaker 1: to talk about an advocate for disabled Indigenous people, Pratima Gurung.
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  Speaker 1: And Gurung is an academic activist from Nepal and has
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  Speaker 1: been working tirelessly to fight for the rights of the
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  Speaker 1: disabled women and children in the indigenous community of Nepal.
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  Speaker 1: A disabled Indigenous woman herself after losing her hand at
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  Speaker 1: the age of seven, Gurung has been a part of
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  Speaker 1: the fight to get the voices of her community heard
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to being seen presented throughout the world
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  Speaker 1: and Paul alone. The population is made up with at
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  Speaker 1: least thirty five of indigenous peoples and according to Guru
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  Speaker 1: DePaul has at least one point three million Indigenous people
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  Speaker 1: with disabilities right and Gurum has talked about the difficulties
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  Speaker 1: and challenges and being an Indigenous woman with disabilities, and
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  Speaker 1: she stays quote, the first challenge I experience as an
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous woman with disabilities is about meaningful representation. It involves
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  Speaker 1: who you are, where you are represented. And because as
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  Speaker 1: soon as you are a woman and an Indigenous woman
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  Speaker 1: and a woman with disabilities, all of these identities keep
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  Speaker 1: you limited within the four walls. It comes to a
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  Speaker 1: point that your voice, your representation, your identification, and your
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  Speaker 1: recognition is the primary thing, and that begins from home,
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  Speaker 1: from the family, from the private sphere to the public sphere.
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  Speaker 1: And she continued the second challenges about being disabled and
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  Speaker 1: the stigma associated with it. When you are a woman
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  Speaker 1: with disabilities, you have many serious and critical issues related
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  Speaker 1: with your life. The third thing is ensuring your base
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  Speaker 1: sick fundamental needs like education, your social background, your economic status,
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  Speaker 1: your employment opportunities, your accessibility. Group started working with the
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous People's Movement over twenty years ago in two thousand one,
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  Speaker 1: researching the different aspects and fundamental rights for Indigenous women,
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  Speaker 1: and quickly realized how little information she had about Indigenous
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  Speaker 1: people with disability and especially Indigenous women with disabilities, and
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  Speaker 1: saw the importance of the intersectionality of Indigenous and disability um.
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  Speaker 1: She's become a fierce advocate in ensuring these voices are
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  Speaker 1: heard and has become a leader within the movement. She's
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  Speaker 1: currently the President of the National Indigenous Disabled Women's Association
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  Speaker 1: NEPAUL and she is an expert contributor for the Disability
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  Speaker 1: National Direcitions Committee, which was created by the Ministry of
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  Speaker 1: Women and Children and Senior Citizen in Nepaul government and
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  Speaker 1: the General Secretary for Indigenous Persons with Disability Global Network
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  Speaker 1: and Nepal Indigenous Disabled Association. And on top of that,
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  Speaker 1: she is a part of the faculty of pad mc
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  Speaker 1: kanye College. Cat Men do. As you can tell, she
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  Speaker 1: is very busy person and has a lot to do
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  Speaker 1: and does it very well. With her busy life, she
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  Speaker 1: continues to speak out and work internationally to have women
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  Speaker 1: to be a part of the policy changes in overall
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  Speaker 1: conversation of the importance and representation as a whole, especially
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to making a progress and change in
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  Speaker 1: our world and community. As she says in her interview
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  Speaker 1: with Cultural Survival Quarterly, I really want to highlight the
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  Speaker 1: effective and meaningful participation of Indigenous women at all levels. Today.
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  Speaker 1: We want Indigenous women at the table. We want them
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  Speaker 1: to make their decisions. We want them to make their
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  Speaker 1: concrete ideas known about the issues and concerns that are
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  Speaker 1: affecting their lives. We don't want others who would make
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  Speaker 1: a decision and an agreement on behalf of us. Indigenous
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  Speaker 1: women with disabilities have to be brought to the front
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  Speaker 1: lines by their effective and meaningful participation. Yeah, and actually
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  Speaker 1: she just recently, I think it was twenty nineteen, participated
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  Speaker 1: with the u n's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in
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  Speaker 1: New York and was able to highlight a lot lot
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  Speaker 1: of just controversial things about the mere fact that there's
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  Speaker 1: not any representation, there's no real conversation within the Indigenous community,
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  Speaker 1: and we wanted to highlight an Indigenous woman. We try
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  Speaker 1: to do as many as we can from all over
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  Speaker 1: the world because this is constantly a thing that we
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  Speaker 1: see where they're completely overlooked and invisible. And then putting
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  Speaker 1: on top of that, we talked about the women who
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  Speaker 1: are ignored, and we've talked about the missing and murdered
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous women that continue to be overlooked, but we also
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  Speaker 1: need to talk about those that are affected by disability.
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  Speaker 1: And we know that people with disabilities in general are overlooked.
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  Speaker 1: So this intersectionality of just being completely not thought of,
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  Speaker 1: is this higher level of concern that we should have
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  Speaker 1: as a conversation, and it should go beyond just the
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  Speaker 1: political conversation, because we see that every day. It's not
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  Speaker 1: a topic that we often see, and that's really sad
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  Speaker 1: and such that oftentimes they're left out altogether in conversations
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  Speaker 1: in general. And I think that it's amazing how little
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  Speaker 1: we know of that population, or how little that we
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  Speaker 1: talked about that population, and her talking about in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand one doing her own research not being able to
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  Speaker 1: find it. In two thousand twenty one, I don't even
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  Speaker 1: see her name in Wikipedia. And she's doing some dynamic things,
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  Speaker 1: obviously trying to change people's minds. She's doing it in
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  Speaker 1: her country, she's doing it for her people as well
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  Speaker 1: as coming into the US trying to talk to the
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  Speaker 1: United Nations. But again we see very limited information. And
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  Speaker 1: this was twenty nineteen. And then on top of that,
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  Speaker 1: we've talked about how COVID has impacted the indigenous community,
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  Speaker 1: and we still aren't talking enough about it. We're not
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  Speaker 1: talking enough about how lack of funding is happening, and
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  Speaker 1: the fact that she was here in twenty nineteen here
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  Speaker 1: in the US talking about it, and she's still fighting
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  Speaker 1: for these rights. But at the same time, we know
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  Speaker 1: COVID has hit indigenous communities, some of them the hardest,
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  Speaker 1: and there's very little and so much backtracking in the
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  Speaker 1: progress they've already made because of quarantine in the pandemic
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  Speaker 1: in itself, and I think we have to make better
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  Speaker 1: efforts and hopefully we are any hopefully we are doing
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  Speaker 1: so in trying to recognize this hard work that's already
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  Speaker 1: being done. Literally, we don't have to do much other
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  Speaker 1: than read these interviews. And by the way, if we
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  Speaker 1: just talked about the Cultural Survival quarterly. They are a
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  Speaker 1: great organization that talks about indigenous people around the world.
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  Speaker 1: So if you want more information about what they're doing,
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  Speaker 1: it's Cultural Survival dot org. And I've gotten a few
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  Speaker 1: names from their organization from their site. So thank you
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  Speaker 1: all for your hard work and helping us to recognize
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  Speaker 1: these incredible people who are doing some incredible work. And
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  Speaker 1: I hope we can do better because uh, and we're
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  Speaker 1: not going to talk about it right now, but just
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  Speaker 1: what comes to mind is the recent case of the
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  Speaker 1: influencer white woman who wit missing and has been found murdered.
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  Speaker 1: There's so much to try to push her case up
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  Speaker 1: so people can see it. And a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: people in the community, people of color, miss indigenous people
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  Speaker 1: are like, what about the people we've been hollering about?
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  Speaker 1: Who we've been yelling about? Hasn't anyone showed this much
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  Speaker 1: interest in these cases? And I think it's important to remember, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there are so many things happening that we continue to
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  Speaker 1: ignore because they are a person of color and or
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  Speaker 1: indigenous or black individual is absurd black that we hear
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  Speaker 1: of these cases and we need to do better as
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  Speaker 1: a whole, as a community and as a group of
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  Speaker 1: people that we say our advocates and we want to
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  Speaker 1: be allies in trying to push this narrative in this
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  Speaker 1: conversation forward, Yes, yes, yes to all. Yeah, there's a
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  Speaker 1: lot to impact there, and we would love to highlight
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  Speaker 1: women who are doing this work. It's something that we
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  Speaker 1: really enjoy. And if there's somebody listeners that you think, oh,
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  Speaker 1: this person, this is somebody who needs to be shouted out,
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  Speaker 1: please let us know right in our email is Stephania
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  Speaker 1: mom stuff at I arnt media dot com. You can
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts or on
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  Speaker 1: Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: to our superproducer Christina, Thank you, and thanks to you
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