When Pooja Pant and her team at Voices of Women Media ran multimedia workshops for girls as young as 15 years old at government schools, one question always bothered them: why aren’t there enough spaces for young girls and women to grow their knowledge?

“There would be times when we’d be teaching young girls who were in grade 9 and 10, and they wouldn’t even know that there are books in the world other than their course books—books that can encourage them to explore and think constructively,” says Pant. At their office, Pant would have rounds of discussion with her team about the need to introduce these children to women in literature and influential female innovators.

Following rigorous discussion, last year the team of bibliophiles finally decided to come up with such a space dedicated to do just that. Over months of discussion and preparation, that idea gradually bore Junkiri, the feminist library—a space to spark conversation about women writers and leaders in the world.

“In Kathmandu, there aren’t enough spaces where people can spend time reading, and even the ones that are there don’t have a good collection. We wanted the library to include works of feminist writers because we wanted young girls to talk about equity and equality,” says Pant. “We always talk about uplifting women, and so we thought it would be nice for young girls to have a place where they could find women’s stories and read books by women authors and journalists,” she says.

Pant and her team’s library idea has today evolved into a tangible space in Makhan, Kathmandu. The team’s vision to create a knowledge hub is already developing and they aspire slowly to make the space open to the public—by the end of this year, says Pant—to share ideas and engage in discourse to thereby cultivate a reading culture that treats male and female writers as equal. The organisation also plans to collaborate with government schools, to provide an invaluable explorative learning resource for the girls with the libraries.

“We also wanted to have a space for people to come and read about women issues and discuss feminist literature so that the movements that happen for equality address more critical issues. We hope that this initiative will help make activism taking place around Kathmandu on women issues stronger, by fortifying them with critical thinking and theoretical and intellectual reasonings,” says Bikkil Sthapit, coordinator of Junkiri. For their collection, the organisation has employed its social networking platforms to reach out to people willing to donate books or funds for their library. 

The VOW Media team believes their library will be essential to the growth of readers advocating for women’s issues. “Books written by women authors and even well-known authors aren’t yet available in the market. And it is because people are not aware of such books at all. Plus many book houses don’t bring in such works for readers,” says Sthapit. “We want to make that kind of resources available to people,” adds Pant.

If all goes well, Junkiri will be the first library of its kind in the country, and the platform could be significant in propelling more Nepali women writers to come into the fore, believes Pant. “It is an important initiative, as many publication houses in Nepal still look down upon women writers. It was really difficult for me to find a publisher for my own book. I believe such a reading space will help encourage more women writers to come to the forefront,” said Bindu

Sharma, assistant professor at Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus. “I am glad that such an initiative is finally happening in Nepal,” she said.

Globally, female-focused reading spaces have been around for years, like the Glasgow Women’s Library in Scotland, the Biblioteca Francesca Bonnemaison in Spain, The Women’s Library LSE, Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand in France and the Jessie Street National Women’s Library in Australia. These libraries were born out of the need to establish women stories that have changed small and big communities.

In Nepal too, initiatives such as Junkiri have surfaced before. One of the firsts of such initiative came in 1998, when Asmita Women’s Publishing House, Media and Resource Organization (ASMITA), a non-profit, started a feminist magazine to bring to light the importance of women rights issues. Similarly, many women have also over the years made groups to discuss women’s issues and critically analyse the ongoing events of the country from women’s perspective.

“Places, as such, will definitely help readers and researchers with feminist reading material. Many people usually ask me where they can find it, and I usually suggest sites online. But a library like Junkiri will definitely help people find good reading material—not only that, it will push the conversation on feminism further,” says Amina Singh, an independent researcher in the area of adult learning and social transformation.

VOW Media is still crowdsourcing for books. If you want to join the initiative, write to [email protected] or call 9861047681.