Introduction

This is first yearly accounts of performance and activities of Society for Humanism (SOCH) Nepal. SOCH Nepal is a newly humanist organization in Nepal. It is brought to an existence by enthusiast professionals and social workers for the promotion of awareness and practices of scientific life stance, fair exercise of democracy and justice, enjoyment of human rights in dignified manner and encouraging ethically social responsibilities and human obligations for sensible humanity.

To Promote Scientific way of approach
To promote Democracy and justice with humanist bias
To promote humanistic ethical practices
To raise awareness about human obligation

Promotion of on-violence, co-existence, tolerance, mutual assistance, friendship/amity and fundamental values of Humanism.
Advocacy for Human Development, Global Human right and Justice.
Promotion of realistic Human character.
Promotion of Science and critical thinking
Eradication of gender discrimination, caste system, Superstitions, Bad rituals etc. by awareness campaigns/Intellectual revolution.
Organizing different humanist programs in collaborations with global humanist organizations.
Research, Training, awareness programs for democracy, Rule of justifiable law, scientific knowledge and good governance based on humanist philosophy.
Network development of like minded organization/individual.

Set targets for the year

• SOCH Nepal has published a handbook on humanism in Nepali language. It includes basic knowledge about humanism and other important philosophical write-ups.  SOCH is planning to publish the hand book on a yearly basis.
• SOCH Nepal is publishing Bi-monthly “SOCH Bulletin” in Nepali and English bulletin quarterly. It was monthly before June, 2007.
• SOCH is currently airing a fortnightly radio program from eleven FM radios stationed across Nepal. It is focused on promoting humanism in Nepal. The program is expected to contribute to eradicate dogmatism, paranormal practices and religious fundamentalism and promotes the culture of scientific and critical thinking, rationalism, courtesy in our society. According to the data provided by FM stations, SOCH radio program is being heard by 7 million people per episode.  SOCH has also started to establish network with the help of the radio program. SOCH is getting a lot of responses form the listeners.
• Workshops and other awareness programs: SOCH Nepal organizes workshops every four months. Politicians and policy makers are the focal persons of those workshops. Two such recent workshops were titled “Humanism and Current Crisis of Humanity in South Asia” and “Secularization of the country: Role of Youth, Politicians and Civil Society Leaders.”
• SOCH has established the alliance of youth politicians from sister organizations of major political parties. This alliance would also work in common agendas together.  Main purpose of the alliance is to carry humanist programs to the grassroots level of the society through political parties.
• SOCH has also created its own network of SOCH friends to fight against evil rituals, paranormal practices, superstitions, illusion, corruption, human right etc. We want to develop a far-reaching network to address these problems at all levels. Various right-based organizations and like-minded people are helping us being SOCH friends.
• SOCH Youth has facilitated/attended the Social Youth Forum (SYF) 2006. SYF is the first youth forum in Nepal. SYF announced the youth declaration 2006. SOCH Youth also presented a working paper on good governance and role of youth fighting corruption. Thousands of youths from different parts of Nepal actively participated in the program. About 70 youths from different district discussed on the working paper. SOCH Youth strongly contributed to prepare Youth Declaration 2006. 
• SOCH Youth is organizing monthly campus seminars on Humanist life stance and critical thinking: Topic of the seminars is “Humanism and Critical Thinking”. Till date SOCH has organized 31 seminars. These seminars are focused on practical education and vision of life stance for students which they cannot find in their curriculum. Main objective of the seminar is to inculcate critical thinking in young students and help them develop humanist approach. Students are encouraged to discuss about their thinking about life and society. They also discuss about scientific approach of life. Many youths influenced by SOCH campus seminar are interested to join SOCH youth to promote the humanistic life stance. SOCH has organized many campus seminars in remote part of country too.  SOCH youth has established its network coordinator in two major part of Nepal - Morang and Jhapa districts.
• Humanism is completely new philosophy in Nepal and emerging issue in the world. Thus, it is crucial that we make people aware of humanist movement and values. To this end, SOCH has undertaken fortnightly discussions amongst people from different walks of life i.e., Scientists, journalists, professors, social workers and students. Discussions are held every first and third Fridays of a month.
• SOCH has established “Humanist Multipurpose Cooperative Limited” for the sustainability of humanist movement in Nepal. It services its members for the insurance, credit and deposit, health care, education facility and some humanitarian programs.
• SOCH has completed a project titled “Initiating Nepal into Humanist Movement” funded by IHEU-Hivos in 2006.

Lesson learned

• We have realized that we are more ambitious in doing activities. Because we have not met all the targets set for the period in between. For example: we were planning to go among 5000 students in a year. But we did not meet the target.
• We are publishing important humanist bulletin, but our distribution part is not so strong. So that we are missing some targeted person. We should have strong distribution too.
• We are planning such massive programs without having strong manpower and resources. 
• We should focus on organizational strength before lunching activities.Challenges

• Lack of appropriate human resources. For an example: we have hosted our web site before some months (www.sochnepal.org) but we are still not able to update because of lack of skilled manpower. No volunteers are found yet to update the page.
• Lack of resources (reading space and materials, financial resource etc). Even we are not able to hire a regular office staff.
• It is really hard to convince people that our stance exists because of superstitious social base.
  
  Future direction
• Considering above challenges and limitations, we have set our action plan for 2007/2008. But we have decided to continue all of our current activity fighting against the challenges.
• We are more focused on seeking appropriate manpower and resources.