भगबती चौधरी

भगबती चौधरी

A brief profile of

Bhagbati Chaudhary

Chairperson, Forward Community Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha Ltd.

A Member of the Central Committee of the Nepal Communist Party

Born in the indigenous Tharu family in April 1975, Bhagbati Chaudhary has been very agile, sincere, and determined since her childhood. At that time, most parents of the backward community do not send their girl child to school. Being obdurate, she kept going to school and then colleges for her education. She has now acquired M.A. in Sociology and Mater is in Business Administration academic degrees.

Bhagbati married a social activist, Dinesh Chaudhary, in May 1995 and got a boy child in August 1996.  To uplift their socially backward Tharu community, they established a social service organization named Forum for Rural Women Ardency Development (FORWARD) in the Eastern part of Nepal in May 1995. Her husband died in June 2007 in an accident that shocked and ruined Bhagbati and the entire family of the FORWARD. To continue their work toward the vision dreamed by herself and her husband, she rejuvenated herself and kept leading the organization as executive chairperson.  Through its different social, educational, and economic development programs including microfinance, FORWARD has made a significant contribution to make social and economic improvement of thousands of women of the Tharu community as well as of other socially backward communities in the region. Later with the equity partnership of Everest Bank Ltd., a national-level commercial Bank, and the RMDC Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Ltd., a pioneer microfinance wholesaler, FORWARD promoted a national-level financial institution named Forward Community Microfinance Bittiya Sanstha Ltd. Because of her great roles in the transformation of the microfinance program of the NGO into a regulated financial institution, Bhagbati was selected as chairperson of the microfinance institution and she still working on the same position of the organization.

Bhagbati has also played important roles with other organizations. She was Assistant Director at the Social Welfare Council (SCF) for 2 years. SCF is a government body that supervises and regulated NGOs in the country. She served as a central committee member of the NGO Federation of Nepal for 4 years. She has been working as founder and chairman of Forward Savings and Credit Cooperative Ltd since 2002. Since 2008, she has been a steering committee member of the Nepalese Microfinance Summit.  Currently, she serves as a member of the microfinance banker association of Nepal. She worked as secretary of the microfinance association of Nepal, a federation of microfinance NGOs. She is immediate past Charter President of Lions Club of Duhabi 325-A1, Nepal.

She has been awarded the "Outstanding Women Educator, Social Entrepreneur, and Social worker Award" by the National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development (NFED), India on Women's Day in 2015.

She has presented papers and spoke in different national and international organizations, such as Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit 2008, Bali; Global Microcredit Summit, 2011, Spain; Microfinance Technology Summit, 2012, Kuala Lumpur; Seminar on Global Contact – Local Scenario " South Asia Civil Society Consultation Climate Change" organized by Global Call Action for Poverty, 2008, Dhaka; Annual Anniversary and 2nd Con

venation of Nepalese Indigenous Nationalities Forum Australia (NINFA), 2008, Sydney.

For her great professional social service in the country, the then government selected her as a member of the Constituency Assembly in 2008. Later in 2009, she was given to work as state minister for forest and soil conservation. Currently, she serves as a central committee member of the Nepal Communist Party, a ruling party.