Jaya is passionate about creating space for women, girls and people from marginalised and minority communities whose voices are unheard and deliberately silenced. For this, she co-founded The Story Kitchen where she works with communities to help them feel powerful through their own stories. She started her professional career as a radio journalist in 1999. She has spent nearly half of her life listening to and supporting Nepali women to amplify their voices. Since 2015, she has been working with the women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) of Nepal’s 10 years of armed conflict and supporting them in the healing and truth-seeking process. Jaya applies reflective-storytelling methods which are guided by internationally recognised narrative therapy theory and practice. Jaya’s last 10 years of continuous work with women survivors of armed conflict–related SGBV in Nepal has equipped women survivors to become justice reporters, get organised and demand justice in a collective way. Jaya carries a strong conviction, which she practices through her heart, that everyone has stories, all stories are beautiful, and that all stories matter. jaya@thestorykitchen.org; www.thestorykitchen.org
The Story Kitchen in Nepal is applying the tools of collective narrative practice to ensure that women who have been subjected to sexual violence during armed conflict are not left with a single story or identity. The Story Kitchen has developed a survivor-to-survivor approach, training women as justice reporters to elicit other women’s stories and developing local metaphors to convey their experience. This presentation at the 2022 International Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference in Rwanda shares how The Story Kitchen was created to look at Nepalese history from women’s perspectives, to learn about women’s skills of survival, and to support a collective voice for justice.
Key words: Nepal; rape; sexual violence; gender-based violence; conflict-related sexual violence; transitional justice; reflective storytelling; truth telling; war; armed conflict; collective narrative practice
Luintel, J. (2024). The Story Kitchen: Igniting and building the courage for justice in Nepal with women survivors of armed conflict [Video file]. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (2), https://doi.org/10.4320/YAMT2311
