M4M Founder & Co- Founders Profile
Our Founder
Thailand/Nepal
Sangeet Kayastha
Sangeet Kayastha is a Bangkok-based Nepalese activist working in the area of sexual
and reproductive health and rights and youth issues for more than 15 years.
He is currently Coordinator of Y-PEER (Youth Peer Education Network) Asia Pacific
Center in Bangkok, Thailand. He is also working as a High Level Committee (HLC) member at ICPD25 Nairobi summit.
Mr. Kayastha also offers experience working with United Nations agencies,
governmental and non-governmental organizations, groups and individual activists
as an organizer of advocacy events, conferences, dialogues and activities related to
sexual and reproductive health and rights and the Sustainable Development Goals.
To advance the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD), in 2019 he served as Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific
ICPD25 Regional Youth Consultation and was a speaker at the Nairobi Summit for
the session “A feminist approach to humanitarian action”. He was an organizing core
member of the Midterm Review of the Asian and Pacific Ministerial Declaration on
Population and Development as part of the APPC Youth Forum at the 2018 Asian
and Pacific Population Conference; facilitator and speaker for ICPD Review Bali
Global Youth Forum; and a facilitator for Post- ICPD and ICPD consultations.
Our co-Founders
Nepal
Situ Shrestha
Situ Shrestha, Co-founder and Regional Coordinator of the Me For Myself (M4M) Campaign, is an emerging youth activist with over five years of experience in the field of Mental health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
Her key motto is “Empower, Appreciate, Inspire” and strongly believes in the power of youth engagement for positive societal transformation. Through M4M, she aims to increase public awareness on the importance of mental health, reduce social stigmas surrounding it, and empower youths to live healthy and prosperous life. Having been involved in both national and international level advocacy, her campaign also focuses on the importance of making policy-level efforts in addition to individual empowerment.
Nepal
Awnu Shrestha
Ms Awnu is the Co-founder of the M4M and Livenow campaign, which worked to establish both campaigns as responses to mental health and pandemic since March 2020. She is also an SRHR & Disability rights activist and trainer working for more than 6 years in the issue and had been working in organisations such as Working Group on Disabilities 2030, Y-PEER Nepal and other platforms.In M4M 2020-2021 she also works as a core member mostly looking at IT and web support as well as mentoring core volunteers. In Awnu’s opinion, mental health should be introduced from younger age since school rather than only promoting when there is a pandemic or someone is actually in need because in most societies the mental health is linked with the taboo and only way to reduce the taboo and myths is to introduce the topic to children from a younger age.
She also believes that organisations should include and take care of special need groups such as young people with disabilities, the ageing population and people marginalized communities to address their mental health.
Bhutan
Ayeshwini Lama
Ayeshwini Lama, 23 from Bhutan is a co-founder, core member and mentor with M4M. She is a passionate advocate with her main works focused on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Mental Health. She is also a writer and believes that content creation is an effective way to promote positive community change and advocate on important issues. She considers patience and reliability to be her strongest traits and is an optimist with a vision of an equal and healthy world.
Nepal
Fura Gelzen Sherpa
Fura Gelzen Sherpa, 24 from Nepal is a founding member of the M4M program. He is a peer educator at Y-PEER Nepal. Having a background in the tourism & youth sector, he has been actively working to promote SRHR, Mental health, Youth participation and SDGs in Nepal. He had mostly been working on ICPD25 as a regional youth advocate. Through M4M, Fura hopes & believes that Mental health awareness among young people is very important. In Order to support his vision Fura believes that you can contribute wherever you are. He asked you how are you feeling today?