The Feminization of Poverty - A WOW! e-brief

 

WORLD NEIGHBORS WORK TO END FEMINIZED POVERTY

The work World Neighbors does in its partner communities addresses poverty as a multidimensional issue, focusing on providing economic opportunities, such as savings and credit groups and skills training, as well as increasing gender equity and empowering women. Before World Neighbors partners with a community, women often have poor prospects in all aspects of life. World Neighbors strives to change the destructive social patterns, especially poverty, that afflict women. Their approach to creating gender equity involves both men and women, and focuses initially on creating places where women’s concerns can be heard and validated.

 

One program utilized by World Neighbors to alleviate poverty is to provide women with skills they can use to earn income. In Guatemala, World Neighbors provided the IK-Luna Women’s Group with revolving credit as well as capital to set up a handicraft business. In addition, World Neighbors helped the women secure seeds to start a coffee and tree nursery. World Neighbors provided training to help the women care for the nursery and to plant their own gardens and cultivate subsistence crops, like tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cilantro and other local favorites.

 

Another way World Neighbors provides women with economic opportunities is through the creation of savings and credit groups. This strategy is often used as a way to mobilize community assets, whether they are money, seeds, tools or livestock. The support of women’s savings and credit groups is especially important in World Neighbors approach to gender equity because these groups often have the effect of increasing women’s position within the community. Savings and credit groups provide women with the opportunity to improve their leadership and communication abilities as well as to gain valuable training and skills. Through the process of participating in these groups, women gain self-confidence and often become more involved in decision-making within their families and communities.

Donate Now!

In addition to helping women gain access to income and better economic opportunities, World Neighbors focuses on addressing the social and cultural elements that contribute to women’s poverty, such as restrictions on women’s mobility, their excessive unpaid workloads and power dynamics within the family that restrict women from working or controlling any household money, regardless of who earns it. An added benefit of improving women’s economic opportunities is that this can eventually improve their status in the community and in the home.

 

The distribution of resources should be made by men and women within the family, each contributing to decisions regarding household needs and priorities. Sometimes when women are able to earn an income and contribute more to their family and community, their confidence increases and others in the village begin to see the benefits of their increased participation in decision making. Often, however, there needs to be a process that addresses changing the social and cultural dynamics. One way World Neighbors approaches this need is to improve couple communication and raise awareness about the value of women’s involvement in family and community decision making and leadership so that they come to appreciate the benefits to families and the entire community.

 

Additionally, providing women with training and education enables them to gain skills that allow them to earn better incomes and improve their social status. For example, in Bihar, India, World Neighbors and a partnering organization provide support for a non-formal school that enables girls who previously could not attend school to do so. World Neighbors works to establish programs that teach literacy and finance management.

 

Furthermore, World Neighbors promotes better access to reproductive health care for women and girls. World Neighbors works with partner organizations to provide family planning services to women who want to limit the size of their family. The ability to control the spacing of children greatly affects a woman’s ability to have steady employment and earn wages.

 

The work World Neighbors does in its partnering communities addresses women’s poverty from many angles. World Neighbors strives to alleviate the immediate pressures women experience as a result of poverty. At the same time, World Neighbors focuses on the social causes of feminized poverty. Through this approach, World Neighbors is better able to create long-lasting improvements for women in developing nations.

Read More . . .

Photo credits for this page (from top to bottom):

1. Photo by Linda Jo Stern/World Neighbors

2. Photo by World Neighbors

Donate Now!

Women and Poverty: An Overview

Learn More and Get Involved

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

December 2007

back