Background

“Information is Knowledge and Knowledge is Power”. This sentence reveals the importance of information in gaining knowledge which eventually supports to strengthen our power in each and every sector and understanding of any issue and subject matter will bring changes in the intellectual horizon of individuals which contributes eventually to the upliftment of people and places with the creative ideas and initiatives. Thus, knowledge is power undoubtedly which is contributing factor for developing society, making people civilized and critical on each and every subject matter.

Knowledge cannot be gained without taking reference of anything and that reference will be acquired from different books, textual materials, websites, experience sharing of individuals, insights of experts, intellects, discussions, interactions, taking part in different workshops, seminars, visiting different places, meeting different people etc.

Reading and interacting habits are the ingredients for enhancing and sharpening knowledge but we usually lack such things and we hardly bother to go to the knowledge centre where we can explore the things which are related to our own fields and take ideas on emerging issues which are emerged as a form of new and contemporary issues in span of time. Even if we want to read and take ideas on different issues, we all do not get an ample environment to take part. Moreover, some of us have social, economic, cultural barriers and some people do not bother to take part any training because they will not get enabling environment to accustom their nature and attitude. We want to go for computer and language trainings but due to lack of enabling environment as we want, we hesitate to do so and such problems will mainly face by senior politicians and women leaders of civil society, which is determined by their political status and public identity.
Considering all these considerations and constraints, especially on leaders, we- Jagaran Nepal wants to establish a resource centre meant especially for ‘policy advocacy/empowerment platform’ for women issues. Actually, Jagaran Nepal has its own resource centre which has been operating since its establishment. We like to maintain and open our resource centre as a common platform for policy advocacy and for that we are opening the centre with the availability of reading books, availability of computer and internet services and availability of common discussion forum for the discussions on emerging issues especially women issues.  On the one hand, the centre will be a milestone to create an atmosphere on reading attitude among the leaders, politicians and students, to learn about computer applications and enhance skill on English language with the understanding on emerging issues and on the other hand, it will provide a platform for policy level discussions for leaders, intellectuals and other interest groups to take endeavor for pro-people and pro-women policies  which will eventually contribute to overall development of the country with justice to equitable society.


The resource centre has been managed for:

• Internal Purpose
• Sharing Purpose
• CBOs Capacity Building Purpose

The centre will have the documents of human rights, women rights and gender equality published by governmental, nongovernmental and human rights organizations.  The required process for obtaining materials published in an international level will be initiated. The documentation of the acquired materials will be done according to the standard process. The resource centre now has around 1000 plus books in both Nepali and English languages which will be further extended by other required books related to human rights, women rights and other important books listed as per the suggestions of Jagaran Nepal expert team.  Jagaran Nepal has managed its resource center with full-fledged and innovative way. The centre has been developed under library reference section on which one can be a member of our centre and s/he can have the access to the available books and other documents.We hope that this resource centre of ours will be of immense help to all the people working in the field of women rights, human rights, leadership, advocacy and other right based organizations. Now the resource centre has been improved through international library standard and it is our belief that the accession of availed documents, books and reports can be retrieved easily through new systematic library approach.


Major Functions of the Resource Centre:

1. Collection of women rights/issues documents
2. Production and Documentation
3. Library and reference Service
4. Creation/Updates of database on the status of women in different sectors (National/International)
5. Interaction on contemporary issues
6. Document collection and wide dissemination at grassroots level

Facilities:

• Membership facility
• Library 
• Computer and internet facility
• Photocopy, sacnning, mutimedia, photography  (*conditions applied)
• Meeting Hall
• Regular Interaction on issues related to womens.
• Publications
• Media Mobilization

Books Available on:

• Human Rights
• Women rights
• Gender
• Reproductive Health 
• Social Inclusion
• Communication
• Development
• Advocacy
• Leadership
• Sustainable Peace
• Constituent Assembly
• Agriculture/ Climate
• Capacity Building etc.