Celebrating Women and Taking Action - A WOW! e-Brief

 

WORLD NEIGHBORS AND WOMEN

 

In the communities where World Neighbors works, the situation is dire for all people, but especially so for women and girls. In these areas, women are often excluded from opportunities that could better their quality of life. Before World Neighbors partners with these communities, women have poor prospects in various aspects of life. They have much heavier workloads than men have, yet at the same time they have little or no access to economic resources. In many places, women do not have the right to own the land they work and live on. Their health suffers from neglect, especially with regards to sexual and reproductive health.

 

World Neighbors believes that changing these harmful social patterns is key to bettering the lives of women. Our approach requires that both men and women be involved in the process of increasing gender equity. Initially, World Neighbors and its partner organizations focus on making the voices and concerns of women heard within the community. This can be done through group discussions or activities, like 24 Stones. In the latter, women and men are given 24 stones, each signifying an hour of the day. They are asked to place the stones in various piles that represent the time spent on different types of activities and chores. In the end, both men and women realize how much larger a workload the women bear. The illumination that this exercise brings often results in men offering to shoulder some of women’s unpaid work, such as gathering firewood, collecting water or feeding animals.

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Improving communication between men and women within their communities helps them understand the benefits that come from gender equity in family and community decision-making. Furthermore, these discussion sessions also focus on increasing women’s self-confidence so that they feel comfortable participating in decision-making and leadership roles.

 

In addition to addressing gender equity, World Neighbors and its partner organizations work to improve the myriad social problems arising from gender inequity, such as poor access to health care, limited education and few economic resources. World Neighbors has several different methods for doing so, such as offering reproductive health information and access to family planning services, as well as supporting savings and credit groups.

 

Improving women’s access to reproductive health care involves providing family planning, health services, health education and prevention of sexually transmitted infections. Through partner organizations, World Neighbors provides access to contraceptives and sexual health education services. World Neighbors supports the goal of the International Conference on Planning and Development to make family planning universally available by 2015. World Neighbors approaches the issue of reproductive and community health in a variety of ways. In some areas, community health workers provide counseling and education in rural villages. These workers are trained by World Neighbors and its partners.

 

In some areas, World Neighbors works with its partners to provide girls and women with educational opportunities. For example, in the village of Amauja, in Bihar, India, our partners run a school for Dalit and Muslim girls. In Amauja, and many villages like it, the literacy rate hovers at 10 percent and girls are not sent to formal school. Informal schools run by World Neighbors partner organizations teach subjects such as math, health and basic health. Access to education for girls is essential to improving their quality of life.

 

Additionally, World Neighbors provides economic resources to women in order to better their status within their communities. One way World Neighbors accomplishes this is by helping women form savings and credit groups. World Neighbors has incorporated this income generating resource into its programs since it helped form its first savings and credit group in 1988 in Nepal. To date, local savings and credit groups in Nepal, which involve approximately 11,000 members, have generated over $400,000 from interest revenue and savings. These groups provide women with the opportunity to improve their leadership and communication abilities as well as to gain valuable training and skills. Women increase in self-confidence and often become more involved in the decision-making process within their families and communities as a result of their participation in savings and credit groups.

 

By the time World Neighbors leaves a community, the women have undergone such a transformation that they are almost unrecognizable. World Neighbors works to improve women’s ability to share in decision-making. By sharing their input, women provide a valuable perspective that often serves to improve their family’s education, health and economic situations. The increased self-confidence that World Neighbors works to give these women allows them to organize and advocate for themselves once World Neighbors leaves the community.

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Other sections of this e-brief:

1 - March: Raising Awareness About Women and Poverty

3 - Learn More and Get Involved

 

A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women @ World Neighbors

March 2008

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