Bikalpa-an Alternative conducted a one-day workshop on “Entrepreneurship and the Beauty of Market” in association with Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE International), for the youths and college students in Biratnagar. The objective of the program was to educate young minds on the issues of Entrepreneurship, Market Economy, Public Policy and engage them in further activities to be conducted under The Bikalpa Fellowship program. The program comprised of sessions on “Why Is Entrepreneurship Important?” “The Beauty of Market,” “Values of Entrepreneurship”, “Why is Nepal Poor?” concluding with a short introduction to the Bikalpa Fellowship. The program was conducted at the premises of Lasa Kush Newari Khaja Ghar, Biratnagar. The program was coordinated by Mr. Madan Krishna Pradhan and facilitated by Mr. Basanta Adhikari, Mr, Sarwagya Raj Pandey, and Mr. Suman Rai. Participants of the program were selected through an online application. 25 participants were shortlisted from over 50 applications.
Basanta Adhikari
Basanta Adhikari conducted sessions on “Why is Nepal poor?” and “Beauty of Market”, where the participants were presented with a different narrative on why Nepalese were forced to live in poverty and how economic freedom could help change that. During his presentation, he illustrated different examples on why some countries were rich and others were forced to remain poor. He also stressed that prosperity and poverty both could be achieved through good and bad policies respectively. Those sessions also covered topics on sound economic policies and how they facilitated entrepreneurial activities and created an environment which could uplift the economic status of the common masses. The session on Beauty of Market educated students on how markets help to solve the problems and ease life of common people through its service and products. Besides this, the session highlighted on how markets fulfilled the need gap of demand and supply, offered choices and helped in prospering the society through cooperation of self-interested individuals.
Sarwagya Raj Pandey
Sarwagya Raj Pandey facilitated the session on Entreprenurship and its Importance. During the session, participants were divided into 5 groups and with a presentation assignment. Through the assigenment, the participants dealt with the five core questions on Entrepreneurship i.e. What is entrepreneurship?, Why is entrepreneurship important to the society?, Why should I be an Entrepreneur?, How are entrepreneurs perceived in our society?, What are the conditions that promote entrepreneurship? and What are the challenges of entrepreneurship? After 30 minutes of group work each group presented their opinion in a 5 minute pitch. The best group was selected through a popular vote and rewarded accordingly. Sarwagya Raj Pandey provided a brief feedback on the presentations and further explored the definition of an entrepreneur, their perception in the Nepali society and how they evolved over time. The session also included the differences between an Entrepreneur and a Businessman and the correlation between entrepreneurship and economic development and ultimately how entrepreneurs created value for the society culminating with the types of policies needed for ushering the entrepreneurial era.
Suman Rai
The third session was facilitated by Suman Rai, in which, three short films, namely, “I-pencil”, “Let me earn my living (Gari khana deu)”, and “The dilemma of the footpath (Sadak Chheu ko Byatha )” were screened to help participants relate with policy issues. “Let me earn my living”, and “The delliemma of the Footpath” were produced by Bikalpa that highlighted local policy issues, the first one relating to spontaneous order and the coordination of individuals in the market while the second movie put into light the bureaucratic hassles and the challenging scenario of conducting economic activities in Nepal. The third movie highlighted the perils of a street vendor in the informal sector and their quest to earn a livelihood. After each movie screening, Mr. Rai, took some feedback from the participants and clarified the issues related to those movies.
The final session consisted of a brief introduction to the Bikalpa Fellowship program following which Mr. Basanta Adhikari explained about further engagement plan for the workshop participants to enhance their capacities and work together for a cause.
The sessions were very interactive and engaging. All the participants participated actively during the sessions. At the end of the program, we received lot of positive feedback from the participants. Many earlier participants shared about their learning from the event and recommended the workshop to their friends which was encouraging for us. Fun activities, group work, presentations, socratic dialogue and lecture methods were used during the sessions. The program began at 8:00 am (Saturday 12th December 2020) with the breakfast and ended at 4:45 pm after the feedback collection and certificate distribution session. In total, 25 participants took part in the program from different colleges and organizations.
