With prices going up, she has had a hard time keeping her business running. “When I started, I didn’t have to invest much… But everything is so expensive now and I didn’t know where to get the money. The interest rates at a bank are so high. I couldn’t afford it," she says.
“And then we started this [savings] group. Now I’m happy because I took a loan to buy paraffin. I’m able to make my candles again, and I’m selling again.”
Ten years ago, leaders of 189 countries met at the UN and promised to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. They agreed to a roadmap setting out eight time-bound and measurable goals for 2015 -- the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of these goals is to promote gender equality and empower women. One measure of progress towards this goal is to look at the number of women working and earning money.
With paying jobs scarce in many poor countries, earning wages is particularly challenging for women. While many would like to start their own businesses, they lack capital and it is hard to find money to borrow. Without credit, they are unable to take advantage of economic opportunities and stay close to home and take care of their children.
Oxfam’s ‘Saving for Change’ program helps women organize themselves and pool their savings to form a small fund. From this fund, the members can take out loans, which they normally use to start small-scale businesses, deal with emergencies, or improve their quality of life. The program serves poor women in rural and semi-urban areas who do not have access to conventional micro-credit institutions. Savings can be as little as $1 a week and loans as small as $25, or less.
Sandra, like Rocío, also lives in Guatemala and recently joined a Saving for Change group. “Before, I had to go elsewhere to get a loan, and that was so difficult. But now we have our savings and can get our loans. And it’s our own money,” she says. Sandra took a 50 quetzales ($6) loan to buy wool for making Guatemalan cloth. She hasn’t sold it yet, but when she does she expects to make 200 quetzales ($25).
These amounts sound small, but they make a substantial difference in the women’s lives. Take Elena Miranda, who now owns a bakery in Chalatenango, El Salvador. “I took a loan to buy a machine to make bread and pastries… at only one percent interest. Within two months I could pay half of it back… With this business, I cover all the daily household expenses,” she explains.
Saving for Change is based on the group members’ own savings. They borrow no external capital. It teaches women how to manage their fund, and within a year the groups are able to continue their activities on their own. By the end of 2010, Saving for Change aims to reach 10,000 people in El Salvador and Guatemala. That is 10,000 empowered women who are one step closer to lifting their families out of poverty.
]]>Amid the clatter of sewing machines and the swish of scissors, those words—“yes we can”-- have been inspiring a team of Salvadoran seamstresses to ignore the naysayers, set aside their fears, and prove that with hard work and a bit of organization they can change their lives.
The women are members of a small workshop in the community of Cantón Los Potrerillos, one of five such workshops scattered across the Department of Chalatenango, El Salvador, that formed recently to take advantage of a sudden opportunity: the need for thousands of school uniforms in a plan announced by the government.
Oxfam and its local partner, the Association for the Entrepreneurial Development of Producers and Traders, known by its Spanish acronym ADEPROCCA, knew just who should be tapped: people hungry for work--sewers from the savings groups established a couple of years before. Oxfam helped initiate the groups through its Saving for Change program. Offering people guidance on how to save small amounts of their own money and make loans to each other, Saving for Change can serve as a launching pad for small businesses and individual independence.
All told, 49 women and one man from Chalatenango answered the government call. Their participation in some of the 360 savings groups in the area prepared them, in part, for the challenges ahead. With the help of Oxfam and ADERPROCCA, the sewers organized themselves into five workshops and bid on the national project, securing work in their communities and neighboring ones.
In just six months, the workshops cranked out 5,000 uniforms.
But it took some daring for the women to imagine themselves as competitive seamstresses, going after projects that demanded careful resource management and the production of large volumes of high-quality goods. One of the first steps was to master their fear.
“They will put you in jail if you ruin the fabric,” warned the naysayers.
“You will get fined,” said others.
“There is not much fabric. There will not be enough.”
Listening to all of that, Orbelina Alberto faced the yardage before her with trepidation. But confidence soon flowed.
“When we started, we were a bit scared to cut the fabric,” she said. “But when we delivered (an order) to the first school, then we realized everything went fine.”
Alberto is one of the seamstresses in the Cantón Los Potrerillos workshop. Its leader is 33-year-old Javier Sosa, the sole man who started with the project and who has been working as a tailor for more than half his life.
Until now, Sosa had never had a chance to work on an order of this size—and the challenges were daunting at times. Being the most experienced in the workshop, Sosa had to guide the others and correct them repeatedly, all of which led, inevitably, to some tension. But gradually, the sewers learned each other’s ways of working and all of them stayed focused on their objective: to meet their deadline and deliver uniforms of high quality.
But Sosa doesn’t deny the pressure he felt.
“We had to make trips to measure them all (the students). It gives you a headache,” he said.
Alberto, it turned out, had a knack for calming everyone’s nerves—and found herself stepping into the role of production organizer and cost controller. And when the group ran out of money for materials—they needed thread and zippers to finish the job—they turned to their local savings group for a loan of $100, which they have since paid back.
“It’s not only people in San Salvador who can do it, we can to,” said Sosa of all that his workshop has accomplished. “We can, too.”
For the sewers, the opportunity to participate in these workshops, to earn a regular income, and to boost their self-esteem has been life-changing.
The name of the workshop to which Maria Hemindia Zelaya belongs says it all: New Hope. Zelaya is a 41-year-old mother who won the bid for manufacturing uniforms at six schools around Caserio Los Alas. Another seamstress in the workshop secured the bid for two more schools and since January, the 10 women in the group have made 542 uniforms and plan to double that number.
Different tasks rotate among members of the group and on average, each woman has been earning between $200 and $250 a month.
For Zelaya, that means she now has the resources to pay for her son to go to college, which costs $45 a month plus $5 in transportation.
“New Hope means that we have today, with this program, the hope of not going back to unemployment,” says Zelaya
And with the income that Élida Cerros is earning, it means her family can stay together. Her husband, who has seasonal employment only, working in a corn field, had been mulling the necessity of emigrating to find more work. Now, the family can stay where their roots are—and that has brought Cerros great peace of mind.
“I’m happy for having a job because I have him (her husband) at home and he helps me with the child,” said Cerros. “He provides the corn and the beans and I am working. We pass it well now.”
Income isn’t all that the women have gained through this initiative. As important is what they have learned about how to stand up for their rights—especially when dealing with the directors of the schools.
Factories in the cities of Chalatenango and San Salvador were also bidding on the uniforms with prices that made it hard for others to compete against. But the seamstresses knew that price wasn’t the only consideration schools had to weigh—locally-based operations and the capacity to produce a high volume of goods were also part of the criteria for a successful bid. And the women made that case—successfully.
“They learned to demand their rights as being members of the community,” says Evelyn Salvo, program coordinator for ADEPROCCA. And today, the seamstresses of Chalatenango are not the same women they were a year ago.
“Now they have a voice,” says Salvo. “Today, each of them has something to say. They have delivered uniforms and got paid for it. They have discovered that they are capable.”
]]>“Before we would use 100 francs to buy tea,” Diallo said after a group meeting at her home, while she was selling a small bag of cooking spices to a young boy waiting patiently in her doorway. “We would sit around and laugh and tease each other. We didn’t know that if we put our 100 francs together, we could do something really important.”
Saving for Change group members pool their savings, and borrow money to invest in small businesses. Selling foodstuff as Diallo does is quite common, as is selling phone cards, and buying and selling cloth and clothing. Members pay back their loans with 10 percent interest, and the money grows in the group fund for 12 months, when all the assets are disbursed to members equally, and a 12-month cycle starts again. Last fall at the end of the last cycle, each member got nearly $50.
Mariama Ly, a 38-year-old mother of four wearing a bright red head scarf that forms a perfect circle around her face, says she did really well this past year. “I bought new furniture for my house, a bicycle for my son, and I invested the rest in my business,” she says brightly.
Her enthusiasm is easy to understand when you hear her story: Unable to find any steady work in their village, called Bandafassi, Ly’s husband had to move to Dakar where he is a fisherman. It is a good 800 kilometers (just under 500 miles) away, so he only comes home for the annual Tabaski holiday, which marks the end of the Ramadan fasting period. He stays for a couple of weeks, handing over the money he has earned to support the family.
But the money rarely lasted a year, forcing Ly to buy much of the food and clothing for her family on credit. When her husband came home, Ly says “He dealt with all my debts, he had to go around the village paying it all back.” It was the source of stress in their relationship.
After she joined the Saving for Change group in her village, staff from an organization called La Lumière used a grant from Oxfam to teach her and the other members how to establish a saving fund, make loans to members, start their individual businesses, pay back the loans, and re-invest her profits.
Ly began selling dried fish, pepper, vinegar, and other spices around her neighborhood. She says she can now cover all her household expenses. And her relationship with her husband has completely changed. “He’s treating me really well,” she says proudly outside her small home, the only one in her neighborhood with new thatch on the roof. “We talk a lot, we talk things over together. Before he just did what he wanted, but now we discuss it first.
“He’s really happy that I take this responsibility. I get a lot of respect from him now, and it makes me really happy.” Best of all, she says, “when he comes back to the house, there is just peace and love between us.”
Her group president Diallo says harnessing the modest savings and energy of the group members has created similar changes for all of them. “Before we had no way to help ourselves, but now with just 100 francs a week we solve a lot of problems, and help our husbands and our children.” Now, instead of sitting around drinking tea and teasing each other, she says “We tease the men. We are handling all the expenses now, not them.”
]]>To see the video clips of these songs, click on the links below:
Stop a la violencia de género (Stop Violence against Women)
Tú y yo (You and Me)
Gender based violence is far too common in El Salvador, Central America’s smallest country with a population of a little over six million. Domestic violence, sexual harassment, psychological abuse, and rape are widespread, while femicide—the murder of women—has reached epidemic levels. With 347 and 348 femicides in 2007 and 2008 respectively, the rates are among the highest in Central America.
Oxfam America, together with eight other development and women’s rights organizations, is working to reduce the levels of gender based violence, and create changes in behavior, practices and beliefs in El Salvador, a country with deeply rooted ‘machista’ culture.
For the last five years, the campaign has worked on training women in rural areas, professionals and female legislators. However, the most innovative strategy of the campaign is the work with youth; every country’s future.
A new, innovative approach is the EDUCO-BUS, which travels to public schools, and uses music and theater to engage students. The bus’ activities, such as interactive theatre, cooperative games and choreography, provoke critical thinking on gender roles and violence, demonstrate that every individual has the power to change the course of gender violence and talk about what can be done to stop it. Over 40,000 students have participated in the EDUCO-BUS program.
]]>"This study will be an especially useful tool to Louisiana legislators, activists and philanthropists because it provides an evidence-based portrait of living conditions in the state. It looks at our health, our education and our economic status, leading to important conclusions about how we must proceed to create a better Louisiana that is characterized by communities of opportunity," said Flozell Daniels Jr., President and CEO of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation. "The report makes it clear that we cannot forge ahead while leaving so many people behind. It is not only unjust; it is also ineffective."
"A Portrait of Louisiana" is the second state-specific report produced by the authors of The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009 since its release last summer. It applies the American Human Development Index—a single measure of well-being for all Americans based on indicators in three key areas: health, education and income—to life in Louisiana. Using U.S. government statistics on longevity, educational attainment and enrollment, and earnings, the American Human Development Report revealed where America is today and set a benchmark against which we will be able to assess where we are tomorrow. In countries around the world where similar studies have been done, Human Development Index findings have proven that strategic investments in health, education and employment boost people's well-being as well as national prosperity.
Some surprising findings of "A Portrait of Louisiana" include the following:
"This report explores actions needed to build an infrastructure of opportunity so that all in Louisiana can be productive citizens and reach their full potential," said Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-author of both this report and the American Human Development Report. "Doing so is critical to the economic growth and future competitiveness of Louisiana in the knowledge-based global marketplace of tomorrow," added co-author Kristen Lewis.
"In Louisiana, where we work with 16 state and local organizations such as the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, this report clearly illustrates the conditions residents were struggling with even prior to the hurricanes of 2005—limited access to education, lower incomes, and shorter lives—and argues for a comprehensive solution for recovery," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, which helped to fund the report with the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and the Foundation for the Mid-South. "And it comes at a crucial time, given the financial challenges facing the state and nation, to help policymakers prioritize how to use scarce funds."
"A Portrait of Louisiana," like the American Human Development Report, was published by the Social Science Research Council. Go to measureofamerica.org for the full text of the report and interactive maps of Louisiana.
]]>However, we must also soberly assess the challenges yet before Louisiana. This report paints an often troubling picture of long-standing human disparities, some of which have been exacerbated by natural/man-allowed disaster and the global economic crisis. The report's Human Development (HD) Index is a user-friendly method of comparing the condition of communities. This analysis has great potential to guide policy-making processes and to support data-driven thinking that moves beyond the assumptions of historical parochialism.
This report was developed by the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF) in partnership with Oxfam America and other organizations committed to fully recovering the lives of Gulf Coast citizens.
]]>The domestic violence bill, championed by a coalition of women's organizations, seeks to make domestic violence a crime, calls for increased penalties for offenders, and places an obligation on the state to assist victims.
"This is a very important step to protect women from violence and ensure that this is seen as a public crime and not just a private affair," said Professor Isabel Casimiro, president of the board of the Women's Forum and a member of the commission that drafted the bill. "Hospitals, courts, and the police will also have a duty to act and help victims of domestic violence," she said.
"Our research shows that many cases of domestic violence are not reported and there is often no action when they are reported. As a result, women have no protection or support at present. An important aspect of the proposed law is that anyone, not only the victim, can report a case of domestic violence," said Casimiro.
At present there is no law that specifically covers domestic violence in Mozambique and it is currently dealt with as assault under the 19th century penal code inherited from when Mozambique was a Portuguese colony.
Since 2001, Oxfam has supported the Women's Coalition that has pushed for legal reform to advance the rights of women in Mozambique. The coalition played a key role in lobbying for the 2004 Family Law which provides for a wide range of women's rights. The six organizations that make up the coalition continue to support the implementation of the new laws and bring awareness of the legal rights they provide to women and girls throughout the country.
"This is a great achievement for the women of Mozambique," said Michael Chimedza, Oxfam America's program officer in Mozambique. "It shows that our partners have become strong actors in pushing legal reform that promotes the rights of women, as this process took them a shorter time than the Family Law."
The bill was passed unanimously and will now be considered by a committee before a final vote in parliament in mid-July.
]]>As the son of a Sri Lankan fisherman—and the first from his village ever to attend university—Fernando knows well what it means to work hard. That has been one of the defining elements of his life. But little did he know that when he left his position as a deputy director in Sri Lanka's Ministry of Agriculture he would soon become Oxfam's point man in Matara helping to revitalize the local coir industry, which turns the fiber from coconut shells into ropes, mats, and other products.
It was the tsunami that changed all his plans.
After 22 years with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fernando had retired at age 55, as many in government service do—to work longer requires permission—and had found another post, a lucrative one, in the private sector. But within days he realized it was not for him: bribery was one of the job requirements.
"I was shocked by it," he said, and, with the blessing of his wife, promptly gave his notice. Home, with its two acres of land in Kalutara district, beckoned instead.
"I started a little farm," said Fernando. "I had plantains, goats, and chickens."
Then the wave hit. His house was spared—it was far enough inland—but the coastal home he had grown up in, and which he had just restored for other family members, was swept away.
"Everybody got out—thank God," said Fernando, including his elderly father who, at 89, was saved by some youths who scooped him up in a plastic chair and carried him to safety in a church.
Right away Fernando jumped into the relief effort, working with a German organization that was assisting children affected by the disaster.
"I was helping them and I was very happy," Fernando recalled, and that's when he saw an ad Oxfam had placed for a livelihoods assistant in Matara—and applied. He had to convince the hiring committee, however, that he was the right man for the job. Why would a man from the upper echelons of Sri Lankan government service with decades of professional experience want to take the post of an assistant?
The answer was simple and unarguable.
"I want to serve," Fernando remembered explaining. "I have come from a fishing village. I'll help the same people."
They are the people, like his mother, whose early influence on his life set the standard that has guided him ever since.
"My mother was very pious and economical and good with saving," said Fernando. "Even though we didn't have money, she had money. Even today I can't believe my mother, on my father's meager earnings, had money."
Now, engaged with the coir workers, Fernando is helping other women in similar circumstances slowly build some financial security for their families—a mission that speaks to the core of who he is. The coir project, known as the Poor Women's Economic Leadership Coir Program, has helped save its members from exploitation by middle men. It has found them new markets for their coir products and introduced labor-saving equipment. Most of all, it has helped women build unity, through self-help groups and a newly formed federation that will make them a force to be reckoned with.
"I have very good job satisfaction working with these people," Fernando said. "I am happy we have empowered them. They can do anything they wish. And their living standards are becoming better."
What about this project makes him the most proud?
"Having the opportunity to work with the women," said Fernando. "They have the courage and interest to do better in society."
]]>"I'm not famous," said the slogan on his T-shirt.
And that's probably why you haven't heard very much about Milongo's problem'or the problem of countless Congolese women caught in a war that has used their bodies as a battlefield. Rape has ruined their lives. And now, it's creeping into their villages, too, corroding what's left of community life after so many years of conflict.
But since it's happening in a place that's far away, in villages whose names we can hardly pronounce, we don't pay attention. We should—because it's a horror that stalks us, too. About 132,000 women a year in the United States report they are victims of rape, or attempted rape, says the National Organization for Women. That's one of the reasons Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994—to combat sexual assault.
Now, there's a new protection bill set for debate in Washington. This one would take the first steps toward guarding the safety of women everywhere—even in countries where governments are not up to the task. Proposed by US Senators Joseph R. Biden and Richard Lugar, the International Violence Against Women Act would require the development of a five-year strategy—supported by a $175 million annual investment—to support programs targeting violence against women. Among them would be public awareness campaigns and a strengthening of criminal and civil justice systems.
Additionally, through increased training for aid workers and expanded reporting requirements, the bill would tackle the violence women and girls suffer during humanitarian crises and conflict—times when women are particularly vulnerable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Democratic Republic of Congo. John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, told a reporter last October that the sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world.
But what makes these attacks even more insidious is the consequence of speaking out about them: There is danger in challenging Congo's culture of impunity. Justine Masika lives with it daily—behind the barbed wire wall erected around her house to keep her safe. She is the head of a Goma-based group that has helped more than 7,000 women who have suffered from sexual violence. Last year, soldiers punished her for her truth-telling and advocacy. They invaded her house and attacked her daughters.
But Masika is not alone. Others, like Lamia Milongo, are fighting back, too. When the soldier abducted his 12-year-old daughter to claim her as his "wife," Milongo put his own safety aside and went in pursuit. He rescued her and returned her home unharmed. But the daughter of his neighbor was not so lucky. Her rescue came too late. Now, at 15, she is pregnant, shamed, and facing a life of hardship and poverty since in Congolese culture women who have been raped are often cast off by their communities.
Sexual violence is a plague the world should be rid of. Mothers like Masika need our help. So do fathers like Milongo. We took an important step here in the US in 1994. Now it's time to take the next one—into our global community—with passage of the International Violence Against Women Act.
]]>"The project has been very favorable for us, because we have seen ourselves embark on a really positive path within ANAP," Ydalmez Gonzalez says. "And for my personal experience, it has been very fruitful. We learned about gender, organizing, communication, computers, and organic agriculture. We learned a lot and it is very satisfying."
Many women in the rural areas of Cuba are looking for work, but there aren't many opportunities. Oxfam is helping to solve this problem by including in its projects the construction of greenhouses and nurseries where women can work. In addition, ANAP has organized workshops on gender in order to lift women's self esteem and create new leaders. Today, in the municipalities of Roda and Palmiras, there are 60 new women leaders.
"This project has been a base for us to continue working on what we have dreamed about for years. Women have the same rights as men, the law says so. But in the real world, from a social point of view, it isn't so," says Alberto Curbelo, president of ANAP in Cienfuegos. "Today, because of this project, 53 percent of the leaders in this province are women. So, when we saw these excellent results, we decided to develop a gender strategy for ANAP nationally. This strategy allows us to identify the problems that limit women's participation in each cooperative and find a way to resolve it. What's more, the project helps women and men identify their own strengths and potential."
For Carmen Padron, president of a credit and services cooperative, ANAP's gender work has been the key to her development. "I started out in ANAP in an administrative position in a livestock cooperative," she says. "Because of this women's leadership project, I began to feel more confident. I started to take on other responsibilities within the same cooperative. I worked a little in sugar cane production, taking on a little more of the role of a director among my workmates. And my workmates, apart from respecting me as a woman, saw me as a leader."
"Later, I went on to manage a 125-member sugar cane cooperative," she says. "It wasn't difficult. I learned a lot in the women's workshops. I felt confident. I learned to direct, to communicate, how to talk to my workmates, how to get them to do things without offending them, without mistreating them, or imposing myself upon them. I used the power of persuasion. But when I went on, a few months ago, to lead an entire cooperative I thought they might reject me. But they didn't; they accepted me. And since I had experience, it wasn't difficult. The farmer today is not the same as before. He accepts the fact that women lead, that they have opinions, and he takes them into consideration. So it wasn't difficult to be a woman leader. But if I hadn't have had all these training sessions, all this instruction, all this knowledge I had acquired, I wouldn't have been able to do it. I would have stayed behind a desk, scribbling numbers. No one would have been able to get me out of there."
It isn't just older women who are discovering these new abilities and possibilities. Only in her twenties, Yamelis Ferron was a speaker at an official ceremony. She spoke to thousands of farmers.
"It was really exciting, because after I spoke people said, 'I didn't know you were capable of that,' and 'I didn't think you had the courage to stand up and speak in front of so many people,'" she says, remembering her experience. "In school I would panic whenever I had to speak to large groups. But when I got involved in this movement of women leaders, little by little I lost that fear. I feel very proud to have started from the rank and file. I am now deputy in the municipality of Roda and I continue to work. They are small steps, but steps you notice."
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