Dignity Initiative held an introductory talk program entitled, “Academic Activism and a New Era of Dalit movement “dated September 19th, 2015. This program was organized with a view to offer wider coverage of the Dignity Initiative among professors from home and abroad. The introductory talk program had focused around mainstreaming Dalit movement.
In the program, Dr. Steve Folmer, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology of Wake Forest University had said, “Dignity Initiative represents Naya Yuga for Nepal and for Dalits. Dalit were spoken to so-called higher caste as ‘Hajur’ and responded as ‘Timi’. They were spoken but not listened. Dignity Initiative had lot more to offer in academic space for Dalit”.
Steve speech- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpFgOOnJYRI
Om Gurung, Head of the Sociology Department had said, “Universities are meant for knowledge production. However, universities in Nepal are not inclusive in curriculum and research work. Therefore, we need an inclusive education system that respects the life of every individual”.
Bishwabhakta Dulal “Aahuti” had said, “There has been limited research conducted on Dalit in the past making Dalit movement heavily relied on emotions and solidarity. So, it is an urgent need to build think tanks to generate more data evidences to back up Dalit movement and best practices and policy recommendation to perform advocacy/lobby with government.”