A Disappointing Harvest for Rural Women - A WOW! e-brief
PROFILE: CARMEN MUYULEMA
Carmen Muyulema, 50 years old, is a member of the community of Cachisagua, a province of Bolivar, Ecuador. She dreams of a brighter future for her daughter than what she, herself, has experienced. Carmen accomplishes this by being a community leader. She spreads the knowledge she has gained from World Neighbors and CEMOPLAF, a community and reproductive health organization, by training other women in her community.
Carmen grew up in Cachisagua, a small community located 3,000 meters (almost 10,000 feet) above sea level in the Ecuadorian highlands. Members of this community mainly practice small-scale agriculture and cultivate maize, fava beans and potatoes.
When Carmen was young, she moved to the larger city of Riobamba to earn money as a domestic employee and attend school, but following an unexpected pregnancy, she had to leave school. She remembers her hardest challenge, though, as the way she was treated as an indigenous woman when she was among the "mestizos" - people of mixed indigenous and European blood. "I realized through this," she remembers, "the importance of education to making a better life."
Donate Now!
Carmen returned to Cachisagua in 1996 to care for her sick parents, and it was then that she eventually became involved with a group of indigenous community volunteers that World Neighbors supports through our local partners CEMOPLAF and the Wiñay Kawsay Foundation. The Wiñay Kawsay Foundation is a legally constituted organization that is made up of 42 community volunteers who focus on sustainable agriculture and community health.
The program started out as a group of 40 community volunteers who were all indigenous people from different communities. Carmen has worked as secretary, community volunteer and treasurer for the group. Carmen found this work to be eye-opening, making her look at her life from a new perspective and seeing many possibilities before her. "My life changed because I got insight into the way life could if I committed myself and learned," she remembers.
Her participation with the Wiñay Kawsay Foundation taught Carmen a variety of things. The group learned about sexual and reproductive health, cover crops, raising guinea pigs, home gardens, organic agriculture, pesticides and many other things. Carmen implemented what she learned in the group sessions into her daily life. She learned new techniques that helped improve her farming production. "Before I joined the group, I didn't know anything about these topics," she says. "Today I can grow vegetables and I know how to use organic fertilizer."
Donate Now!
Carmen has been a leader in terms of seed saving and exchanging. "Since the seeds project started two years ago, I have started to promote the recovery and conservation of native seeds, the use of traditional seeds and the reduction or elimination of chemical pesticides and fertilizers," she continues. "Now, I already have seven varieties of fava beans and I am in the process of seed saving and exchange with other communities."
In fact, women like Carmen are at the forefront of this area of agriculture, as they have been for centuries. The promotion of native crops,over imported ones (which bring with them a wealth of issues around cost, adaptability and need for additional inputs) is made possible when women like Carmen keep good seed in seed banks from season to season.
This technical training has also allowed women, including Carmen, to develop initiatives and increase adoption of better techniques like home gardens, organic fertilizers and guinea pig production. Consequently, their incomes have increased. Women have increased their participation in all activities and they have more responsibility and leadership in their families and communities.
Donate Now!
Carmen feels like her involvement with World Neighbors has empowered her and given her confidence. "I have learned to interact and deal with people and this makes me feel proud of myself," she explains. "What I have also learned is that when we are uneducated we are dependent. But when we are educated we have the possibility of knowing better and having a good life. I want to give my daughter a good life, so I had to give her an education."
Her involvement in training and exchanges with other farmers has also given her more than just technical skills. "I have learned a lot of things and I use them," she notes. "Most importantly, I am not as shy as I used to be and I can now share and understand others' problems. I can openly discuss the problems in my community." This has helped in other ways - she is able to participate in community and family decision-making and leadership.
All of her work and experiences helped her view herself and her possibilities differently. "I want to be a capable woman and be self-relient," she states. "I want to teach other women and men what I have learned. I want to show the community that we can do things differently, and better," she says with determination.
Carmen summarizes, "The community has new ideas, there is motivation to work and people are generally motivated to work differently so that they may develop.”
Read More . . .
Donate Now!
Other sections of this e-brief:
1 - Rural Women and Agriculture: An Overview
2 - World Neighbors and Rural Women
4 - Learn More and Get Involved
A WOW! e-Brief
Work of Women @ World Neighbors
February 2008
back
