Young people in Nepal are transforming public spaces, politics, and online civics through art and activism, and this is one of those stories. It begins with a childhood shaped by movements for democracy and grows into a life devoted to feminist organising, artivism, and building structures for youth power.
A global youth story
This conversation was recorded as part of Restless Development’s Youth Collective, a global network of over 5,000 youth-led organisations and young leaders in 185 countries. The Youth Collective connects these young change-makers with opportunities, fellowships, training, and a shared platform to tell their stories and learn from one another.
The aim of this story is simple: to show how one young feminist activist from Nepal is weaving art, technology, public policy, and community organising into powerful change, and to invite others to see themselves in that journey.
Meeting a feminist artivist
The protagonist of this story is a 26‑year‑old feminist youth activist from Nepal who prefers to be known not as a “role model” but as a co‑creator and co‑learner. They currently work as a programme coordinator with Fearless Collective’s Foundation for the Arts in Nepal, a feminist art collective that creates participatory public art with misrepresented communities.
They describe their work in simple terms: building structures for youth movements, youth leadership, and youth political participation, while holding space for feminist, queer, caste and class-aware organising across South Asia.
Growing up inside movements
Their journey started unusually early. As a child, they watched parents and relatives actively involved in struggles for democracy in Nepal, often taking them along to protests, workshops, and political gatherings. Those early experiences made protest, civic participation, and collective action feel normal, not exceptional, and planted a deep belief that change is both necessary and possible.
By their teens, they were already participating in demonstrations and community events and using early social media to question injustice and resist narratives they did not believe in. That instinct, to speak, organise, and build rather than stay silent, never left.
Learning to build youth power
Later, they joined an anti‑corruption organisation (similar in spirit to youth accountability labs that support youth-led governance work), where they curated youth fellowships, wrote articles, compiled weekly newsletters, and produced podcasts on corruption and accountability. This was where movement instinct met structure: fellowships became a way to identify and nurture Gen‑Z youth leaders who are now leading their own initiatives.
Looking back, they see that programme as one of their three most meaningful contributions, less because of what they did personally, and more because of how many young leaders found language, community, and courage through that space.
Enter Fearless Collective and mural making.
Their path then intertwined with Fearless Collective, an art movement that creates large‑scale, community-rooted murals as public monuments to people’s stories. In Nepal, they coordinate projects that bring together community artists, local survivors, and youth leaders to co‑create murals that reflect the community’s vision for its public spaces.
These murals are not “random” images: they are portraits and symbols grounded in real people’s stories, survivors of violence, marginalised communities, and those whose contributions have long gone unrecognised. For many, seeing themselves affirmed on a wall turns shame into pride and fear into visibility.
A mural that changed a street
One of the most potent examples they shared was a mural created with survivors in collaboration with a Nepal‑based feminist organisation, where the wall became a living monument to resilience rather than a silent backdrop. Community members who had never seen their realities reflected in public space suddenly found their stories centred, sparking conversations about gender‑based violence, safety, and healing.
The interviewer connected this to another art‑activism example: “ghost bicycle” murals created at sites where cyclists were killed, a practice used globally to mourn and protest unsafe streets. In both cases, art transforms ordinary walls and objects into lasting reminders that demand a different future.
Policy, AI, and a “Polis project.”
Their second big pride point is a self‑led “policy project” using digital tools to listen to thousands of people. Drawing inspiration from platforms like Polis (used in participatory democracy to map opinion clusters), they led a process that gathered around 3,000 responses on public issues and analysed them to understand where people agreed, disagreed, and where new consensus might be built.
The project did not try to impose a single “celebratory” narrative; instead, it embraced disagreement as a regular part of public debate while still seeking shared ground to guide better policies. For them, this was proof that technology and AI can help open civic spaces rather than restrict them, especially when young people design the questions.
Obstacles behind the murals
From the outside, murals and fellowships can look polished and simple, but the reality is more chaotic. They spoke openly about burnout, precarity, and the emotional labour of being a young activist in a fragile economy, often juggling multiple jobs while doing movement work that is rarely fully paid.
They also highlighted the difficulty of earning trust: institutions can be sceptical of young people, and communities, especially those that have been harmed, need time and care before they feel safe enough to share their stories in public. What keeps them going is collaboration: knowing no single person or organisation can do this alone.
The power of networks and collaboration
Over and over, they returned to the theme of networks. Everything they are proud of, they insisted, came from collaboration, with other young people, with feminist collectives, with tech builders, with local governments, and community elders.
This aligns with the ethos of the Youth Collective itself, which exists as a global, inclusive network for young leaders and youth organisations to work in solidarity, access funding, and strengthen each other’s work. For them, networks do three things: keep them accountable, keep them learning, and keep them hopeful.
Measuring impact beyond numbers
Asked about impact, they used a beautiful frame they learned through Fearless: social, personal, and universal.
- Social: How does the work shift public conversations and community norms, for example, inviting people into dialogue rather than shaming them, or turning an ordinary wall into a collectively owned message?
- Personal: How do survivors, youth fellows, or young organisers themselves feel more seen, confident, and connected?
- Universal: How does the work contribute to broader shifts, like reclaiming streets as safe spaces, or normalising feminist, queer‑inclusive, caste‑conscious politics in public life?
Impact, in this view, is not just statistics; it is also whose stories are told, who feels represented, and what futures become imaginable.
Not a role model, just not alone
When asked whether young people look up to them as a role model, they smiled and said they hope not in a pedestal sense. They see themselves as someone who makes mistakes, keeps learning, and wants to co‑create spaces where everyone can teach and everyone can learn.
The interviewer affirmed this, emphasising that the intention of telling this story is not to say “be exactly like her,” but rather “learn with her.” This story is an invitation to see activism as messy, relational, and deeply human.
Advice for young people: start close, start small
Their advice to young people who see problems but don’t know where to begin is disarmingly simple: start from what is closest.
- Go to your nearest community group, local youth club, grassroots organisation, or even a small event and observe what is happening.
- Pay attention to what bothers you in your own neighbourhood, unsafe crossings, harassment, silence around menstruation, corruption in your school, lack of inclusive spaces, and start asking questions there.
From there, join or form small groups; co‑organise an event, a mural, a dialogue circle, or a digital campaign. Change does not always start in parliaments; often, it starts in a lane, a wall, a WhatsApp group, or a school courtyard.
Why this story matters now
This story was recorded around the 16 Days of Activism against Gender‑Based Violence, a global campaign from 25 November to 10 December, when movements around the world highlight both the scale of violence and the creativity of resistance. In that context, youth‑led artivism in Nepal is not a side note; it is part of a larger, global tapestry of feminist and human rights struggles.
For the Youth Collective, featuring this story in the December newsletter is a way to say: young people in Nepal are not “behind”,they are leading, innovating, and offering powerful models other regions can learn from.
An open invitation
Fearless Collective remains open as a movement of artists, storytellers, and communities who want to move from fear to love through participatory public art. Restless Development’s Youth Collective is likewise open to young people and organisations worldwide who want to collaborate, share opportunities, and build youth power across borders.
Whether through a mural, a fellowship, a policy experiment, or a ghost bicycle on a corner where someone’s life was lost, this story reminds everyone that art, organising, and technology can meet in the hands of young people. When they do, the walls, streets, and narratives of a country begin to change.
