{"id":10542,"date":"2018-07-17T17:07:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T11:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pahichan.com\/?p=10542"},"modified":"2018-07-17T17:07:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T11:22:51","slug":"opening-doors-to-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/opening-doors-to-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Doors to EQUALITY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kathmandu (Pahichan) July 17 &#8211; No human in this world is perfect. What is a perfect society? Even when we\u2019re not complete ourselves, we want to portray that \u2018this\u2019 is what is normal, like the rule has been set and \u2018this\u2019 is what everyone must do. The idea of a \u2018Heteronormative\u2019 society (meaning there are only two sexual genders and orientation) being considered the natural expression of sexuality is a giant hurdle to jump over for the\u00a0\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning and Intersex) community. Why do you owe someone an explanation just because your identity does not cohere with their heteronormativity thinking? Carelessly assuming someone\u2019s gender, gender expression, sexual orientation is nothing new even in today\u2019s world but this is a blatant erasure of all other identities because somehow everyone must be straight.<\/p>\n<p>A recent episode that opened our eyes at Nepal River Runner (NRR) was when we offered a sponsored complimentary rafting trip to all the participants and the entire production team of \u2018Miss Pink 2018\u2019 as a gesture of love &amp; support for the community. We wanted the participants to freely enjoy the moment like it is normal and that they need not hide from coming out from the shadows. We aimed to make them feel comfortable and accepted; we wanted to show that they deserved to enjoy this trip, there is nothing wrong with wanting to have fun and nothing or no one can come between their human rights. This in fact was a successful trip for both parties as the participants expressed their gratitude to our team. \u201cTo have experienced such a thing, to have \u2018fun\u2019, and to feel accepted since no one has ever treated us this way it was like the first time. It was like a different sort of happiness and we\u2019re thankful that we did not miss this chance\u201d, to hear these words from them made us realize that even if their community is growing big, they are still struggling to be accepted.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nepalriverrunner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/firstfinal-compressor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Besides the issue of gender\/sexual orientation, the community has just started to grow through the encouragement and act of support from some parts but the case of harassment and safety issues still remains. They are at a vulnerable stage where the youths live in fear and conflict, questioning themselves and affected negatively in their mental state. Family\/Societal rejection &amp;discrimination, bullying at school, calling it a \u2018phase\u2019 and making them feel like they\u2019re abnormal or what they\u2019re doing is wrong is disrespecting their rights. Besides home and school, such situations can also be faced during their work or upon looking for a job opportunity, reducing the chances of minor communities like the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBQTI<\/span>\u00a0to openly do what they want to and express themselves.<\/p>\n<p>To overcome this issue, we are one of the first tourism companies that has come with an agenda against this attitude of prejudice that affects the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0community of Nepal to render our full support and promote equal rights among all. Whether you identify as straight, gay, lesbian, trans, pansexual, intersexual or any other gender, we\u2019re all humans with the same blood and the same rights. You are not bound by your sexuality or gender, and anyone can openly speak out for themselves without hesitation. Our company has been supporting the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0movement in Nepal for over a year and will continue to show enthusiasm and encourage people from the community to join us.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nepalriverrunner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/scnd-compressor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Teaming up with the Blue Diamond Society, an\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0advocate organization in Nepal, Nepal River Runner (NRR) &amp; Himalayan Challenge Treks (HCT) have introduced the following agendas to support the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0community:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To provide equal employment opportunities to all individuals in the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0community (Trekking guide, Rafting guide, Canyoning guide, Kayaking guide). Also in the future, they may be involved in hotels and restaurant hospitality service.<\/li>\n<li>We will train candidates who are interested and determined to tackle the chosen activities preparing them to acquire the respective license.<\/li>\n<li>We agree to share 15% of the total transaction involving the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0guests with BDS (This shall be our Corporate Social Responsibility).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As a part of the company to help the association, our team at NRR plans to reinforce alternative learning and earning for the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0youths so they do not have to fear and hesitate from getting recruited to their desired job. Emphasizing the term, \u201cWe are all equal. Respect to all\u201d, we are focusing to establish a\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0friendly tour adventure so the youths can push forward career wise and mentally.<\/p>\n<p>Living in fear of exposure, humiliation and shame is what these youths go through every single day. With the increasing suicidal rates and mental illness due to denial or depression, even the smallest efforts from our sides can help them in coming out and feel accepted for who they are. We endlessly continue to support the\u00a0<span class=\"lgbt\">LGBTQI<\/span>\u00a0youths and promote mental health in hopes of changing the so-called \u2018heteronormative\u2019 thinking of the society in Nepal. People its time to wake up and see reality. This is who they are and there is nothing wrong with it. In the end, we are all humans.<\/p>\n<p>Copy :\u00a0www.nepalriverrunner.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kathmandu (Pahichan) July 17 &#8211; No human in this world is perfect. What is a perfect society? Even when we\u2019re not complete ourselves, we want to portray that \u2018this\u2019 is what is normal, like the rule has been set and \u2018this\u2019 is what everyone must do. The idea of a \u2018Heteronormative\u2019 society (meaning there are only two sexual genders and orientation) being considered the natural expression of sexuality is a giant hurdle to jump over for the\u00a0\u00a0LGBTQI\u00a0(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning and Intersex) community. Why do you owe &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":10543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621,492,490],"tags":[447,203,446,204,445,1444,1362,458],"class_list":["post-10542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","category-slider","tag-bisexual","tag-blue-diamond-society","tag-gay","tag-intersex","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbtqi","tag-queer","tag-transgender"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10544,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10542\/revisions\/10544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}