Atoot

Speaking truth to funders 💚

Recently, Atoot's Co-Founder and Director Mashreeb Aryal was invited by Global Fund for Women () to speak at an internal learning session about his experience serving on their Anti-Corruption Advisory Group — a participatory body representing members from across different countries and regions.

The Advisory Group played a meaningful role in shaping participatory grantmaking to feminist grassroots organisations — ensuring that the communities closest to the work had a say in where resources flow.

Mashreeb spoke about how serving on the group expanded his understanding of corruption, how it manifests in the communities Atoot works with and across Nepal more broadly, and what it costs small feminist grassroots organisations trying to do their work with integrity. He also shared what funders need to understand about supporting anti-corruption work led by organisations like ours.

Joining him on the panel was Marta from Syria Untold — a grantee partner selected through the same participatory grantmaking process.

Grassroots voices belong in these conversations. We are glad Atoot's was in the room. 💚

Speaking truth to funders. 💚

Recently, Atoot's co-founder and Director Mashreeb Aryal was invited by Global Fund for Women () to speak at an internal learning session about his experience serving on their Anti-Corruption Advisory Group — a participatory body representing members from across different countries and regions.

The Advisory Group played a meaningful role in shaping participatory grantmaking to feminist grassroots organisations — ensuring that the communities closest to the work had a say in where resources flow.

Mashreeb spoke about how serving on the group expanded his understanding of corruption, how it manifests in the communities Atoot works with and across Nepal more broadly, and what it costs small feminist grassroots organisations trying to do their work with integrity. He also shared what funders need to understand about supporting anti-corruption work led by organisations like ours.

Joining him on the panel was Marta from Syria Untold — a grantee partner selected through the same participatory grantmaking process.

Grassroots voices belong in these conversations. We are glad Atoot's was in the room. 💚

A week of colour. 🌈

Atoot's U-7s spent a week exploring one simple theme — and what unfolded was anything but simple.

They learned colour names in English and Nepali, raced to colour corners when their colour was called, filled butterfly and animal outlines with coloured paper, and sat down for their very first finger painting session.

That last one surprised us. Given free rein to paint however they liked, every single child — without a word to each other — painted in straight vertical lines, top to bottom. All of them. The same quiet, instinctive pattern, arrived at independently. We're still thinking about that one.

The biggest surprise, though, came during group activities. These are kids who usually fight over materials. This week, they passed the glue, helped each other paste, and worked side by side without being asked.

Colour, it turns out, has a way of bringing people together. 🎨

Representing Atoot at the roundtable. 🇳🇵🤝🇬🇧

Atoot's Programme Manager Sharanya was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion hosted by UK Minister for Indo-Pacific and Equalities , bringing together women leaders and changemakers from across Lumbini.

The conversation centered on local leadership, voice, and agency. Sharanya spoke honestly about what we see on the ground — an interlocking mesh of challenges where gender discrimination feeds into child marriage, early school dropout, and a near-total lack of agency of girls and women over their own lives. But she also shared what gives us hope: the change we are witnessing every day. Girls at Atoot who are building confidence, finding their voice, and beginning to see themselves as future leaders — something many of them never had the courage to imagine before. If she can see it, she can be it.

It was equally inspiring to be in a room full of remarkable Nepali women doing extraordinary grassroots work — including Kalpana Harijan, Deputy Mayor and serving Acting Mayor of Lumbini Cultural Municipality, whose initiatives for female empowerment have been quietly transformative for the region.

Sharanya also had the privilege of speaking with the UK Ambassador to Nepal H.E. Rob Fenn and British Council Nepal Country Director Rustom Mody — a meaningful opportunity to share Atoot's work at a diplomatic level.

Grateful to and for including Atoot's voice in this conversation. This is exactly the kind of space grassroots organisations need to be in. 💚

From Lumbini to St. Lucia. 🌍⚽

Atoot's Programme Coordinator Monika travelled to St. Lucia to participate in the Khel Pou Lavi Coaches Exchange Programme — hosted by as part of 's Equal Play Effect collaborative project with .

Over the course of the exchange, she coached girls, attended workshops, received session feedback, and learned alongside coaches from across the world. Cross-cultural learning at its most real.

"I got the opportunity to learn coaching and coach the girls, which really helped me understand how to deliver learning effectively. After every session, we received feedback, which was such a valuable part of the experience. The people were so sweet and welcoming — their warm greetings made me feel comfortable and happy." — Monika

One moment said it all: the exchange of Saint Lucian, Haitian, and Nepalese flags — three organisations, three countries, united by one belief in the power of sport to transform girls' lives 🇳🇵 🇭🇹 🇱🇨

Thank you to Sacred Sports Foundation for so warmly hosting Monika. We cannot wait for our girls in Lumbini to feel everything she brought home. 💚

Our story is being told. 🎬

For the first time, a professional filmmaker came to Lumbini to document what happens at Atoot.

Sudin KC () — photographer and filmmaker based in Kathmandu — spent time with our girls, our staff, on our field, in our classrooms, listening to their stories and capturing them on film. The result is a documentary that follows one young woman's journey through seven years with Atoot — and what that time has meant for her life.

The film is currently in editing. It will be out soon.

We have waited a long time for Atoot's story to be told like this. We cannot wait for you to see it.

🎬 Stay tuned.

Hello, digital world. 💻✨

For the first time in Atoot's history, our girls have access to laptops — nine of them, generously donated by Twimbit ().

Building a digital lab has been a long-held goal for us. Today, it is no longer a goal. It is a reality.

We started at the very beginning — what is a cursor, how does a mouse move, how do you start and shut down a laptop. Then came their first lesson on Paint, where every girl wrote her own name in her own colours and design.

The girls said it best:
"I liked touching and feeling the laptop, but I was also scared that I might break it." — Sapana
"One day, we will also be able to work on laptops like didi and dai (Atoot staff)." — Saraswati

Thank you, Twimbit, for making this possible. 💚

We Are In. 🤍⚽

Today, thousands of organisations across the world are doing what Atoot does — using football to open spaces for young people who were never meant to occupy them. Different countries, different fields. The same belief.

We are one small part of something very big happening today.

This week, after seven years of bumpy ground and girls clearing weeds with farming tools from home, our field in Lumbini was finally flattened. That field exists because people believed it should.

Our goal is $10,000 — to keep the sessions running, the field open, and the opportunities growing. If this story has moved you, today is the day to show it.

Give big. Give small. Give what you can. But give today. 🤍

🔗 Link in bio to donate. PayPal & Zelle QR codes in the photos.

Seven years in the making. 🌱⚽

For seven years, Atoot has played on a tiny patch of public land nestled between agricultural fields in Lumbini — a plot once used for grazing cattle, transformed by a group of girls who refused to let imperfect conditions stop them.

Every year after the monsoons, the girls would arrive with farming tools from home — clearing wild grass and weeds with their own hands, reclaiming their field one season at a time. The ball still rolled into ditches and neighbouring fields. There was never a flat surface for even a proper 5-a-side. But they kept showing up anyway.

This week, something long overdue finally happened.
With the support of the local rural municipality government, an excavator arrived on our ground — digging up, levelling, and flattening the entire surface. Getting here took years of persistence, constant follow-up, and refusing to let it drop. But we had a narrow window — the fields around us had just been harvested, the only time an excavator can reach our ground without trampling crops. We weren’t going to miss it.

The before and after photos say everything.
This is what happens when girls take ownership of their space, when a community believes in them, and when local government and a grassroots organisation decide to work together. A flat field sounds like a small thing. For these girls, it changes everything.

56% there. 🫶🏽⚽

Halfway to our goal — and it's all because of you.

We want to show you what your support looks like in real life. It looks like a girl running full speed across a field in Lumbini, laughing at something her teammate just said. It looks like a shy girl who barely spoke six months ago, now calling out to her team with confidence. It looks like a group of girls who didn't know each other, becoming something that looks a lot like family.

Football did that. You're helping us keep it going + expanding our reach.

We're raising $10,000 for to keep the sessions running, the field open, and the opportunities growing. We're more than halfway there. A little more will take us the rest of the way.

Give what you can. Big, small, whatever feels right. Every single donation counts.

🔗 Link in bio to donate. PayPal & Zelle QR codes in the photos.

(And please — if you can't give, share this post. That matters too.)