Nibha Shrestha: Lobbying for human rights in Nepal

Australia
Awards alumna Nibha Shrestha is using the skills and expertise she gained on-award
to run human rights advocacy programs in her home country of Nepal.

Nibha
Shrestha was born in the district of Kavre Palanchowk in Nepal. Her mother, a
teacher-turned-journalist and her father, a journalist and well-known civil
society leader, inculcated her with the value of service to others.

Nibha
chose to study psychology at college so she could help people by providing
counselling. She completed a Master of Psychology and subsequently began
working at the National Institute of Psychology as a counsellor.

She
then went on to work with national and international organisations including
the National Human Rights Commission and the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights. Through this work, Nibha developed a strong
interest in human rights and sought to undertake a world-class degree on the subject.
Australia was an ideal country for this as it offered both a world-class
education and exposure to a network where she could gain the skills to unleash
her leadership potential.

In
2010, she was offered an Australian Leadership Award (ALA) to pursue a Master
of Human Rights at the University of Sydney.

In
addition to gaining a deeper understanding of human rights, she also learned
analytical and presentation skills during her program.

‘These
skills have been very helpful for me to give the best of my expertise to the
cause of my country and people as a human rights professional’, she says.

‘The
best thing about my time in Australia was the leadership development module,
which was comprised of a leadership conference and workshop.’

Nibha
now works as a Governance and Regional Program Coordinator at the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF) Nepal, an international non-government organisation. In
this capacity, she coordinates human rights advocacy programs at both the
national and international level. She also provides overall guidance and
strategic leadership in regard to programmatic, financial, and human resource
management.

‘The
articulation skills that I learned during my program have been very useful’,
she says. ‘I have been leading different national and international level
advocacy initiatives including for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). During
the second cycle of the UPR, I went to Geneva and visited various Country
Missions to the UN advocating to include the issues facing the most vulnerable
and disadvantaged groups in Nepal’.

Nibha
is also Vice-Chairperson of the Association of Nepalese Alumni from Australia
(ANAA), and was granted the Australian Alumni Excellence Awards 2016 in
recognition of her contribution to the area of human rights, gender equality
and social inclusion.

Building
on her experience, expertise and skills, Nibha plans to become a civil society
leader in human rights so she is able to directly contribute to policy-making
in Nepal.