La Trobe University social work student Jaryd Stobaus prepares for placement in Nepal

Next month Jaryd Stobaus will continue these efforts when he travels to Nepal, where he will spend the final months of his degree on placement at the non-profit organisation Children-Women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH).

Helping him fund his three-month placement is the Mason Family Trust Practicum Support Bursary, which he will be formally awarded at the university's Bendigo awards and prizes ceremony on Monday night.

Working in Nepal will not be the first time that Jaryd has put his social work skills into practice.

On a study trip to India last year, he and four other students formed an initiative to provide women in rural villages with reusable menstrual underwear so they could manage their periods and participate fully in daily life, having found out many women were unable to access sanitary products.

At the start of this year the members of the I Am Women project sent out underwear for about 50 women and now await the results of surveys completed by the recipients to inform the next stage of their initiative.

Jaryd will travel back to the area after his Nepal placement.

After his first placement at the Centre for Non-Violence he took up a part-time position working in intake and case management for participants in the men's behaviour change program, which works with men who have perpetrated family violence.

Jaryd said his work in such areas stemmed from the awareness that gender inequality was widespread and enduring.

"It's a really obvious example of inequality that still exists in our society, and that's probably what motivates me," he said.

When he first started university, Jaryd said, he wanted to become a child psychologist.

But doing a sociology course while studying for his psychology degree set him on a new path towards social work.

"It's been building and now it's my passion," Jaryd said.

"I love social work, I couldn't imagine doing anything else."

Looking to the future, Jaryd said he loved the community development work he had done in India and hoped that could become part of his career.

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