Resource May 29, 2013
Annual "Meet the Pros" at Westchester Community College a Success
Country:
In rural western Nepal, many women are sent to live in animal sheds while they are menstruating...
![Media file: chaupadi.jpg](/sites/default/files/05-28-13/chaupadi.jpg "Fourteen-year-old Radhika Sunar, left, studies in the yard in front of her home as friends watch in Siddheshwar village, Achham, Nepal. Girls are banned from certain areas during menstruation, including inside of their homes, forcing them to study, eat, and bathe outdoors. "I don't like it at all," she says. "When I'm walking everyone yells at me 'Don't touch this! Don't touch that!" Image by Allison Shelley. Nepal, 2012.")
Westchester Community College, a Pulitzer Center Campus Consortium partner, hosted Pulitzer Center grantee Allison Shelley and 2012 George Washington University student fellow Melissa Turley during its 2013 "Meet the Pros" event in April.
Shelley, a documentary photographer and multimedia creator, worked with fellow grantee Allyn Gaestel on the project "Out of the Sheds: Women Fight Segregation in Rural Nepal," an exploration of chaupadi, a Nepalese custom that isolates women during menstruation. Turley traveled to South Africa to report on violence against women for her project "Closing the Gender Gap in South Africa."
Shelley and Turley discussed their work and answered questions during two sessions for students and the general public. An informal meet-and-greet took place between the two sessions with the visitors, who also included Pulitzer Center Managing Director Nathalie Applewhite. They also attended a private afternoon reception with selected students, faculty and administrators. Throughout the day they offered a behind-the-scenes look into the life of a journalist overseas, as well as the Pulitzer Center's Campus Consortium International Reporting Fellowship.
Students at Westchester created multimedia projects in response to Shelley and Turley's presentations. The video and blog post featured here are by Brendan Roode, who graduated in May 2013 with an Associate of Arts degree in Communications & Media Arts. The interviewer in the video, Sydney Smith, will graduate in the fall with the same degree.
Westchester Community College is a partner with the Pulitzer Center through the Campus Consortium network.
