After successfully hosting an all-women Motorcycle and scooter repair workshop last month, #MakerKT—a community that empowers women to adjust, fix, or create something they need—is organising a workshop on Home electrical maintenance. The six-session workshop, spread over two weeks, is slated to start on June 19, at Karkhana, Naxal. 

The workshop aims to educate the participants about how home electrical circuits work, and train them in changing bulbs, replacing plugs and wires, making socket boxes, and identifying motor problems. At the end of the workshop, the participants will also take home their own hanging lamp with a custom-made lampshade.   

“By the end of the sixth session, the question is not how many maker ketis it takes to change the bulb, rather how many light bulbs a maker keti can change. Answer: all of them,” says Priya Joshi, the co-founder of #MakerKT.

“This is definitely one of the more practical workshops we’ve held so far. The participants can learn everything from how electricity is produced and brought to our homes to how to recognise and fix simple electrical problems,” Joshi adds. 

In June 2015, when #MakerKT held their first workshop, they could not tell that the one-off workshop would turn into a regular thing. Two years down the line, the community has already held eight successful workshops—ranging from two-wheelers repair and maintenance to jewellery design, from design thinking to app making, and from welding to crochet. Today, more than 70 women are a part of this community. 

A ‘maker’ is anyone who makes something they need, rather than just being a passive consumer or user of it. #MakerKT, as a community, aims to spark ‘maker culture’ in Nepali women by pulling them out of their comfort zones to fix and create things. The community also aims to break gender stereotypes by encouraging women to take on the roles that society deems unfit for the gender. 

Talking to the Post about the next workshop in pipeline, Joshi shares that #MakerKT will be organising Art Aid Project for 75 girls from various schools. The project will deal with art therapy alongside woodwork, electrical wiring and paper art. 

The workshop is open to Nepali women of all age. The registration can be done through #MakerKt website or Facebook page before Friday.