Introduction

On 21st December, 2008, Women Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) Nepal organized Our Body Our Selves book launch and interaction program at World Trade Center, Tripureswor, Kathmandu. The book launch saw the presence of Chief Guest, Honorable Health Minister, Mr. Giriraj Mani Pokharel (Ministry of Health and Population), Dr. Meera Ojha (Ministry of Heatlh and Population, Ms. Brinda Hada (Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare), Ms. Bindu Gautam (Action Aid), Dr. Renu Rajbhandari (WOREC Nepal), Constituent Assembly Members, Members of Women Health Right Network (Khuma J.M., Padma Tamang, Sharmila Niraula, Aruna Chaudary, Devi Ghimire, Jwala Kolachhyapati, Bina Pokhrel).

Besides, the program saw the presence of Women Health Workers from different districts, representatives from NGOs, INGOs, and Media Personnel. Altogether, 90 people were present in the program. Khuma J.M, women health worker was the moderator of the program.

Objective:

• The main objective of the program was to launch the 3 volumes of Our Body Our Selves

• To pressurize the Government to see women's health through women's perspective and recognize women reproductive right as the fundamental right.

Program Details

• Launch of 3 Volumes of Our Body ourselves

The book launch witnessed diverse and inclusive participants of Women Health Workers and Community Health Counselors representing different districts such as Udaypur, Accham, Solukhumbu, Morang, Dolkha; likewise there were members of the Constituent Assembly from different political parties; NGOs, and INGOS respectively working on women's health rights on different sector, and also media personnel. The 3 volumes of Our Body Our Selves were launched by Honorable Health Minister, Mr. Giriraj Mani Pokharel.The three volumes are:

• Women Health and Factors Affecting It
• Violence against Women and Its impact on Our Health

•   Sexuality

Brief Explanation on Our Body Our Selves, Dr. Renu Rajbhandari Dr. Renu Rajbhandari explained that the book Our Body Our Selves is on Women's Health and factors that affect women's health. It incorporates the experiences of 17 years of work of Women Health Workers and WOREC program on Women Health. This book includes information and experiences collected from the discussion with women from different community, group and sector and Women's Health program of WOREC Nepal. Dr. Rajbhandari further added that from the experiences of Women Health Workers, we have realized that there are different factors affecting women's health such as: food, environment, and their identity and values in the society. Women are deprived of their right to information about their own body. They lack proper knowledge about their body and the factors affecting their body. Dr. Rajbhandari argued that women will be healthy if only she is made aware of all the factors that affect her health. So, realizing the need of providing information to women we have published Our Body Our Selves. Dr. Rajbhandari during the program took the opportunity to clarify that the original version of Our Body Our Selves was published by Boston Women's Health Collective. Inspired by them, we have published Our Body Our Selves in Nepalese Context based on the structure and principles of the English version. She also clarified that in most of the sentences the experiences have been mentioned as, my body, my experiences; it does not relate to the experience of one person, rather it is the experiences of all the women health workers and women health counselors who have been working for WOREC health program.