Introducing myself and my journal: NA

About Me:
This is Sarmila Shrestha, Public Interest Lawyer (Advocate) working in the area of Human Rights, Social and Gender Justice. I have professional experiences of working in legal sector and social work for more than a decade. Since 2004, I have been working for the Forum for Protection of Public Interest (Pro Public) as a Public Interest Lawyer in the field of protection and promotion of human rights, social and gender justice. As a lawyer, I had to identify issues for advocacy, prepare litigations, pleading note and plead before the Supreme Court and conduct legal research. I also used to coordinate national and regional training programs, seminars and workshops in order to build the capacity of law enforcement agencies and other concerned stakeholders in the field of human rights, gender equality, social justice, child rights and the good governance. I have also worked as an Expert Member in the team of Pro-Public to draft Gendered Model Constitution to submit to the government to ensure gender equality and women's rights in new making Constitution of Nepal. Apart from that I have published many articles in different law journals, magazines and daily national, regional and local newspapers in the area of human rights, women's rights, gender justice and constitution. In addition, I have good work experiences in designing, planning and implementing projects. I have also done program need analysis, training need analysis including evaluation and monitoring of the program for the purpose of enhancing people’s access to justice, human rights and social and gender justice. The resources mobilization, maintaining co-ordination with donors, government agencies and other stakeholders are my additional experiences. During work in Pro Public, I have prepared several writs to ensure rights of prisoners' women, provide free education to all citizens, protect and promote reproductive health rights of women, ensure rights to food for people of food scarcity district, and ensure rights to get information and rights of street children and management. Apart from that I have pleaded before the Supreme Court in more than two dozen cases and prepared pleading notes for establishment rights of women, person with disability, employment rights of women, basic human rights of prisoners women, rights of mental ill people, reproductive rights of women, reduce sexual and economic exploitation against women and etc.

Before to join at Pro-Public, I was working as a Member of Executive Board and Program Coordinator for Community Legal Consultancy Service Center and Literacy Program at Friends of Sankhu (a Local NGO) Kathmandu from 1997-2002. Providing legal advice/services to the affected women and children of victims of violence, advocacy, coordinate different type of capacity building programs and mediation in the cases where interests of affected women's and children's issues. In addition, I had experiences of working as a Liaison Officer for the organization.
Now I with other six lawyers have established organization called Justice for All (J4A) with aim of expanding access to justice for all

My Passions:
working in ensuring rights and justice for all

My Challenges:
Consistency

My Vision for the Future:
Expanding legal rights and justice to all especially for Women of the World

My Areas of Expertise:
Human Rights, Social Justice and Gender Equality: