The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”. Every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated globally on 8 March. We dedicate this day to take stock of the achievements, little or big it may be, of women who have made a positive impact in their countries, communities, and society. In Nepal, too, women have begun to make significant headway into many parts of their life, including their education and career. The concept of gender equality has become an everyday topic in Nepal.
Even to this day, although there may exist hurdles to establishing women on an equal footing with men owing to Nepal’s long-existing cultural paradigms that downplay a women’s role in achieving great heights; we still have enough room to reject the old phenomena which falsely claims that women are not as capable as men. Rather, we see a growing number of participation of women in almost every sector of the economy, however patriarchal our society may be.
Besides, Nepali women leaders have already served at the decision-making level with having a strong commitment to their visions and goals, and as a result, these extraordinary women have established a construct that really tells us that each woman has the capability to become leaders, be it their own personal life or their career.
We– as an equal opportunity provider startup company–rightfully subscribe to the notion that every woman’s presence adds a unique flair of love and compassion to our lives. She makes our lives more beautiful. She is competent and capable like any man or even more. In light of this, we strongly embrace the idea for women’s equal representation in all areas of the economy, we believe it’s importance is even more pronounced in the education and employment sector. Every woman’s voice should be heard and they should be respected for their ideas and recognized for their initiatives.
For an outsider, taking a brief tour of Khalti’s office, one can observe our office space which is proportionately occupied by almost an equal number of men and women. The ratio of female to male employees is close to a 1:1 ratio. In fact, our female employees actually outnumber men in regard to taking up the head of the department roles, and they also ahead in terms of spearheading change and producing innovative work.
From our app services, recognizing the need for how important a girl’s role can be in families, we have been successfully running our “Smart Chhori” campaign. In this task which can be played inside the Khalti app, she gets to learn about how to perform simple financial decisions that are important for her and her family. Keeping in mind women’s safety and security concerns in the context of our society, our app services may prove to be a convenient option for a girl wanting to recharge her phone balance or Internet subscription at odd hours, like 10pm in the night that she would otherwise not be permitted to go outside her home as her safety could be at stake. Now, she can have power at her fingertips.
There is a stereotype in every family that only male figures should be involved in all financial decisions, even in as small things as electricity and Khanepani bill payments. Now, Smart Daughters all around the country are either doing it themselves or helping their father pay the bills in a few minutes, thus, saving loads of time and energy that is spent waiting in line just to pay basic utility bills.
-Amit Agrawal, Founding Director, Khalti
Khalti app’s services are designed to impart a preliminary foundation of financial knowledge on young girls so that they can become “Smart Chhoris” in families. We will keep adding new features to our Smart Chhori games so that she can be well equipped with the knowledge and help her family members in benefiting the most from every financial transaction her family makes.
As we introspect upon our footprints of the past, we had fewer female employees, now the number has grown exponentially. We feel proud to realize that our efforts at providing the best work experience, company culture, and healthy work environment –where our employees work as family members– have contributed to the realization of personal strengths and unique qualities of our female employees and this has helped them bolster confidence and earned them a renewed sense of self-belief and self-actualization.
Every year, in our office, we celebrate women’s day by sharing a token of love for our female employees by distributing various goodies and gifts. This is a small gesture through which we thank them for their contribution to our achievements and success.
As we begin to create milestones in our journey as a startup fintech company, we are also incorporating our priorities of women empowerment goals into our vision.
THREE CHEERS to all the women of the world who are not zigging to the tune of the society that is zagging to the opposite.
Happy International Women’s day 2020!!
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