Puja Thapa (NYU College of Arts and Sciences)| Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) | Kathmandu, Nepal
I am Puja Thapa, a first-year graduate student pursuing a Master’s in International Relations at NYU Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This summer, I will gain experience and contribute with my skills in the field of women’s labor migration in Nepal through my internship at Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) Nepal in Kathmandu, Nepal. Growing up in Nepal, labor migration has been part of many women in my life. Additionally, my professional experience in a Queens-based organization called Adhikaar, an organization dedicated to the Nepali-speaking community in New York, has furthered my interest in women and migration. Additionally, I developed an interest in learning how global movements are gendered, racialized, and politicized through my IR courses. The combination of my personal, professional, and academic experiences has led me to my summer internship at WOREC Nepal.
WOREC is a movement-based organization with the premise of women’s rights and social justice as prerequisites for peace, social justice, and sustainable development. The organization stood out to me as it was one of the first organizations in Nepal to initiate dialogue on the concept of safe labor migration and women’s right to mobility. WOREC Nepal takes a human rights approach in working towards social change. As a summer intern, I will explore women’s work in the informal sector and women’s right to work and mobility. I will also be contributing to WOREC’s campaign, ‘Valuing the Work of Women,’ led by the WOREC women workers’ forum that carries out advocacy works to enhance the identity, value, and respect for the works of women. Further, I will be involved in collecting related data from the community, analyzing the data, and developing the policy brief and research papers in these sectors. I will additionally assist in the reintegration programs of WOREC for returnee migrant workers and the Safe Migration Program for aspirant workers.
Through my work this summer, I plan to implement the learnings from the Global Human Rights seminar class and my other IR classes and learn and unlearn from the fieldwork. The research work also will be crucial for my thesis next year. Overall, I want to contribute to creating a safe labor migration for Nepali women.