Cooks, nannies and college students walked through the red door, painted the color of Nepal’s flag. Men and women alike, they came to this agency in Queens on a recent weekday seeking legal help that could allow them to visit family in Nepal after the devastating earthquake there.

They were overjoyed. But Luna Ranjit and Narbada Chhetri, the Nepali women leading the nonprofit Adhikaar, had no time to celebrate now. They were busy running a social services organization that in 10 years has gained political influence beyond New York City — in turn challenging the traditional male-dominated power dynamic of Nepali society.

“We have kept Adhikaar’s leadership, especially at the board level, all women because it is our way of addressing the patriarchy,” Ms. Ranjit, the group’s executive director, said in her office in Jackson Heights. “We are women, but we are working for social justice. We are women, but we are representing the entire community.”

Since the earthquake on April 25, Adhikaar has played a leading role in the Nepali diaspora’s earthquake response, and in doing so has given women the kind of voice and empowerment typically reserved for men.