A WOW! e-Brief

Work of Women program @ World Neighbors

March 2007

Overview

World Neighbors Work to

End Violence

World Neighbors works to prevent violence against women through a strategy strongly rooted in the organization’s gender approach. This work is multifaceted, responding to the complex causes of violence and the process of social change that is required to eliminate it. The various aspects of our strategy include a community examination of women’s and men’s roles and their contributions to the community; work to engage men and women in better communication regarding household needs and decision making; improved communication among women and collective action within the community; and, overall, efforts to improve women’s status in the household and the community.

From the moment that World Neighbors begins a needs assessment with communities, we work to ensure that both women and men are part of the process. Gender trainings help village leaders be aware of how they perceive men and women’s roles, and understand the importance of involving a range of people in determining and prioritizing village needs and devising solutions. Because these discussions focus on urgent needs, villagers begin to see how including different perspectives provides a fuller understanding of village needs. They also understand how poor gender relations and exclusion of women in decision making leads to wasting scarce resources.

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One graphic exercise done with villages is to separate villagers into a group of women and a group of men. Each group then lists the major categories of work that time is spent on during the day—for example caring for children, cooking for the family, agricultural work and so on. Then each group takes 24 stones and divides them up according to how many hours they feel men or women typically spend devoted to each task. The differences between the way that men and women perceive the time distribution is illuminating, and provokes a deeper discussion about what men and women contribute to families and communities.

Couples communication is another highly effective way to involve both genders in looking at the resources available, sharing perspectives on problems and solutions and listening to each other. The result can be profound change. For example, a common finding is that while women are often held responsible for meeting household needs, men control most of the household resources and decision making. It reaches a point that when men are forced to migrate to other areas in search of income generating work, women are unable to make decisions about the household in their absence, and must sometimes even travel to the distant site to get a decision from their absent husband. Discussing another way to approach this—namely ensuring decision making lies with wives when their partners are gone, and is shared when both are present—is often enough to convince both parties that needs are better met with more equality in household decision making.

In settings where couples often do not communicate about basic matters, space for discussion can be highly illuminating. With basic communication skills and the encouragement to talk about decision making, couples can correct mistaken assumptions they have formed about their partner’s wishes, feelings and abilities. They are often impressed by the improvements possible when they sit down together to listen to each other and carefully discuss problems they jointly face. This improved communication and shared arrival at a more equitable distribution of decision making can go a long way toward violence prevention. It can be empowering to women while at the same time relieving burdens on men.

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The creation and support of women focused groups is another strategy that World Neighbors uses early on in our partnership with communities. As in many situations when women who have previously not communicated amongst each other find themselves with the opportunity to share experiences, the effect can be transforming. The idea for women’s savings and credit groups evolved from this type of experience, and decisions to invest in community well-being through reproductive health, education and other work is often made primarily from women’s groups. These are also the spaces in which women discover shared experiences of violence, and collectively determine strategies for preventing and dealing with it. Some specific examples women’s groups have identified for reducing violence include collectively organizing to close down a liquor store and creating norms for the community organizations that prohibit members from assaulting one another.

World Neighbors encourages a transition to women’s involvement in mixed-gender groups and a full integration of women into community decision making as communities’ abilities to manage development processes evolve. This integration and leadership development sometimes occurs naturally in the process, and sometimes requires a nudge and encouragement from facilitators.

Overall, it is clear that the only long-term way to effectively prevent violence against women is to achieve gender equity, good communication within families and communities and full engagement of both women and men in development.

Photograph by Linda Jo Stern/World Neighbors.

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