Organized by the Alliance for the Defense of Rural Women’s Rights and Oxfam’s GROW campaign, the San Salvador event was an opportunity for women like Henríquez, a mother and small farmer, to present their demands to members of the National Assembly and government officials.
What Henríquez is fighting for is good and healthy food for her and her family, and a sustainable way of producing it.
“If I have food security, I have it all: a variety of healthy food, land, physical health—my children and grandchildren won’t fall sick because they eat healthy— and education,” said Henríquez. “To me, sovereignty is the guarantee we have to food security [and to] be the owners of our land, our lives.”
Thanks to the training she has received from different institutions, Henríquez now knows how to make organic fertilizer, conserve soil, and work with bees to make honey.
She also benefits from a government program that provides the poorest families with about 100 pounds of fertilizer and two pounds corn seeds. But from Henríquez’ point of view, that doesn’t add up to food security, because when the program ends, the situation will be the same as before. What rural women need, she said, are native seeds which will guarantee sustainability by not only producing crops, but a new round of seeds for planting the following season.
Seed variety isn’t her only worry. Small farmers like Henríquez also face severe challenges from increasingly unpredictable weather.
“This year we lost our crops because of the drought. Last year we lost the whole bean crop because of Tropical Depression 12E,” said Henríquez. That storm dumped five feet of rain in nine days. “I took a loan to invest again, and when this (the drought) happened, I was crying because I didn’t know how to pay back the loan. Thank God the bank came to study my case and canceled my loan.”
Despite the hurdles she and her fellow rural farmers are confronting, Henríquez is confident that all the work they do as part of Alliance for the Defense of Rural Women’s Rights will bear fruit.
“If we go back to using native seeds, we can produce more and more permanently,” she said.” If we have irrigation systems to store water for the dry season, if we have access to information to what is happening in our country—economy, education, health—access to knowledge about soil conservation and how to conserve the environment, than we will have everything we’re all longing for: a dignified live and health.”
Henríquez speaks with the authority of an empowered and independent woman. She is convinced that by speaking out and engaging in the fight for women’s rights, change will come.
“Even if I don’t get to see the changes I’m fighting for, others will, and that gives me great satisfaction,” she said.
]]>Last year thousands voted via mobile phones for the winners of Tanzania's national competition, whose stories were shared with about 25 million people via TV and the media. This year’s winners will also be determined by public voting, and will be announced on World Food Day, October 16.
Below, Oxfam’s Mwanahamisi Salimu profiles one of Tanzania’s 15 Female Food Hero finalists, Sister Martha Waziri. Read about the other finalists on Oxfam’s East Africa blog.
Everywhere I travel in Tanzania I meet women who work the land, but are unable to own or inherit it because of cultural restrictions. In Kondoa district in Dodoma I met a remarkable woman, Sister Martha Waziri, who was determined to change this.
Now 45 years old, Martha began her campaign to reclaim land in 1984. As a young woman she began her calling in the Catholic Church, enrolling in Catholic schools but forced to drop out three times due to ill health. Disheartened and landless, and with no hope of inheriting land from her parents, she saw a possibility to claim a wide sand-ridden seasonal furrow on the border of her village.
The land was completely barren and none of the men wanted it. But not everyone shared 17-year-old Martha’s vision, and when she asked the local authority if she could use it, they laughed at her.
“I became an object of ridicule to other villagers, and when my first attempt to reclaim land failed it was a bonus to them,” she recalls.
Eventually, though, she managed to claim 18 acres of that land. As both a farmer and a pastoralist, she now cultivates 9.5 acres of this land, growing sugarcane, maize, sweet potatoes, cassava, bananas, and a variety of beans. She also rears eight goats and 26 chickens.
She has reaped the economic benefits of her initiative, but has also become a beacon of change in the village. More than 300 villagers, organized into five groups, have now emulated her.
Donasian Kassian, a fellow villager, told me: “When we joined Sister Martha in reclaiming sand-ridden furrows, people dubbed us mad. But 28 years ago this place was a huge useless canal. Today we eat sugarcanes, maize and beans from this land.”
Following her religious calling, Sister Martha has supported 12 orphans and vulnerable youth over the years. Her farms have secured food for her extended family and generated a reliable income to build 10 rooms that the orphans can call home, and from where they can pursue their dreams.
Sister Martha’s success has not been without challenges. She says her first experience of climatic changes was when her fishpond dried up as water levels in the area decreased. She says the land has become increasingly dry, affecting her banana farm most of all.
Sister Martha is not an agro-science expert. She doesn’t use high-tech machines. But this extraordinary woman from an ordinary rural community has made a substantial contribution to conserve her environment and made a remarkable difference in the lives of her fellow villagers. I cannot acknowledge her in any better way than to call her a Female Food Hero.
]]>On the edge of the Taffoga cooperative, in a clearing among the huge mango trees that populate the community, we are welcomed by about 30 women, who describe the horticultural work they are able to carry out with the support of Oxfam, through its local partner ATAD. In the vegetable plot they have planted cabbages, aubergines, gombo (a local vegetable), onions, and garlic. These will enable the women to improve the variety of their diet and they will be able to sell any surplus.
Ramata Zore stops for a few minutes to talk to us while her colleagues water and weed the plot. She is 25 and has 4 children to look after. And at the moment she is on her own, as her husband has gone to the Ivory Coast to look for work.
“The vegetable plot is a help to me, because what I get from it goes somewhere towards feeding my family,” she says. “If I sell some of the vegetables, I can buy millet, which is the staple part of our diet. Also, in these difficult times, we make a recipe based on millet with a few cabbage leaves, which the children love.”
But gardeners here face a daily struggle: Water.
“There isn’t enough water and the wells are drying up,” says Zore. “We’ve had to organize ourselves into two groups: one group does the watering one day and the other does it the following day. In fact…after a few hours of watering, the well is dry and we have to wait a while before we can fill up the buckets again”.
After we have been talking to her for a few minutes, we notice that the coming and going of the women up and down the rows is starting to slow. The four wells on the perimeter of the garden have dried up and the women are congregating around them with their buckets and watering cans, waiting for the water levels to rise again.
“I live in Taffogo and in spite of our having large fields for growing crops, we’ve only harvested four sacks of millet this year, compared with the 20 we can get in a normal year,” says Zore. “But it’s a long time since we had a normal year. Last year, the floods destroyed much of the harvest. We go from one catastrophe to another, either because of too much water or too little.”
“Before, when rain wasn’t in short supply, we had 15 small sheep and cattle,” Zore says. “But we’ve had to sell them all and have now only got one small goat left. As I’ve got nothing else, I’ll have to sell her to buy seeds for next season.”
How to feed her children is always on Zore’s mind.
“Often they tell me they’re hungry and all I can offer them is comfort,” she says. “If there’s something to eat, I give it to them, and if not, I ask the neighbors.”
“My dreams?” Zore asks, surprised at my question about her wishes for the future. “To have enough food to feed my family and a house built of bricks, instead of a shack like the one I live in now. I’d also like to keep up the vegetable plot for five years. Then, if I manage to find something else to do which will enable me to supplement my income, I’ll be able to start a small business. I want to carry on with the vegetable plot and earn money to help my children.”
Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.
]]>Many of these plants have been cultivated by Kichwa people for generations, but are in danger of disappearing as growers turn to cash crops like coffee or cacao instead. This shift to a single crop can leave farmers more vulnerable unpredictable rainfall caused by climate change, and more dependent on purchasing food from outside rather than growing it themselves—putting them at risk of hunger.
“Food prices are increasing. Sometimes we don’t have money for bread,” said Luz Sinarahua, who leads the group of women growers in Chirikyacu. “That’s why we’re glad to have the beans, yucca, and plantains from the garden.”
See a photo slideshow of the women and their gardens
Oxfam program officer Lorena Del Carpio said the ancestral Kichwa methods of harvesting and planting year-round can help people adapt to changes in the climate. “Indigenous people have important knowledge about how to work with the environment,” said Del Carpio. “[Their traditional way of] growing diverse crops helps ensure food for their families.”
The idea for the gardens came from listening to Kichwa women, who first raised concerns about the loss of their crops in an AIDESEP workshop designed to build women’s leadership and advocacy skills. These efforts are part of a larger Oxfam program that helps indigenous people in South America protect their cultural, political, and territorial rights.
In the future, “we want to make sure we have enough for food, [but] our main goal is to sell crops so we can increase our incomes,” said Sinarahua of the women’s plans. AIDESEP aims to organize a sellers’ fair where growers from these remote towns can exchange seeds and connect with potential buyers. And, eventually, they hope to expand the project to other communities.
To learn more about the traditional gardens and the women who grow them, see the article in OXFAMExchange magazine.
]]>In Boston women are innovators in building a better food system that provides healthy and sustainable choices. Celebrate women’s achievements here and worldwide in changing the way we grow, eat, and share food so that everyone has enough to eat, always at a panel and dinner event this Saturday, March 10 at 6 PM at Northeastern University. Panelists include Anna Oloshuro Kalaita, Masaai farmer from Tanzania; Ashley Stanley, Founder, Lovin’ Spoonfuls Inc., Boston; Molly Anderson, College of the Atlantic, Partridge Chair in Food & Sustainable Agriculture Systems; Melanie Hardy, Farm Manager, Land’s Sake Farm, Weston; Keely Curliss, Youth Intern, The Food Project, Boston. The panel will be moderated by Jennifer Hashley, Director, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, Tufts University. To RSVP contact hdasilva@oxfamamerica.org.
“Hunger and poverty affect women and men alike, but because women make up the majority of those living below the poverty line, they carry the heaviest burdens,” said Nancy Delaney, community engagement manager at Oxfam America. “While most of us think of hunger as lack of food, it is actually lack of power. We grow enough food to feed everyone, yet hundreds of millions of women continue to go hungry.”
Women produce a majority of the food in many developing countries, but they are often first to go hungry. Around the world 925 million people do not have enough food to eat, and women and young children are especially vulnerable.
In many poor countries, women are the ones who collect food, water and fuel, maintain the home and look after the children. When food is scarce, women often eat less so other family members can have enough. Most of these rural women rely on farming to earn a living. But although women produce most of the world’s food, they often lack access to vital resources, like a steady source of water or a market where they can sell their crops for a fair price. Climate change poses an added threat, with erratic rainfall and droughts that disrupt the growing season and risk further hunger. Meanwhile, women have fewer opportunities to learn new skills, access credit or find well paying jobs. Sixty six percent of the world’s nearly 800 million illiterate adults are women.
“Human rights are not contingent on gender, ethnicity or money in the bank,” said Delaney. “Human rights are fundamental and non-negotiable. In a world where there is still plenty of food, no one should go hungry no matter who she is and where she lives.”
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Oxfam's work—whether helping Guatemalan women organize to fight gender violence, funding irrigation projects in Ethiopia, or standing with people in Darfur—is about building the resilience of local communities over the long haul. We cannot prevent shocks, but we can help our sisters and brothers access some of the same resources we have to cushion us when times are lean.
We cannot rush from crisis to crisis with short-term fixes. What more evidence do we need than what is happening in East Africa now? This is not the region's first famine, but imagine the headline: Africa's last famine.
Women, on every score, fall far behind.
No solution to poverty can endure without the full participation of women: They make up half the people on Earth.
To achieve that goal—to end poverty—we need to address discrimination and the uneven balance of power between men and women. At Oxfam, we support opportunities for women and girls to change the circumstances of their lives. We help them claim their rights, live free from violence, earn a decent income, get an education, become entrepreneurs, and make their voices heard. Guiding us is our belief in basic human rights, which includes the conviction that women—like men—have the capability to make a profound difference in the lives of their families, their communities, and their nations.
]]>The innovative Saving for Change program is based on the mobilization of savings in small (20 to 25 members) groups. This approach differs from credit-based microfinance in that group members put their own money—sometimes as little as 25 cents a week—into a savings pool which is then loaned out to group members to cover emergency expenses or to start a small business. Saving for Change is now helping half a million people (primarily women, and a few men in Cambodia) with a safe and convenient place to save money, and as a source of small loans.
“This is a population that has been scarcely touched by microfinance institutions and banks,” says Jeff Ashe, the director of Oxfam America’s Community Finance program. Ashe helped introduce the Saving for Change model to Oxfam America in 2005 after carrying out an evaluation of similar programs in Nepal, India, and Zimbabwe.
With support from a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxfam is studying participation in Saving for Change and how this program is helping people provide some financial stability and improve their lives. Early results from studies in Mali are showing that participation in a Saving for Change group provides a valuable buffer against shock – if a household member gets sick, money is available to cover medical costs that might otherwise tip a very poor family into destitution.
“Knowing that their family can fall back on a loan from Saving for Change to deal with an emergency helps reduce stress,” says Janina Matuszeski, research coordinator for Oxfam America’s Community Finance Program. She says that this financial confidence “helps a woman get her head up and say, ‘what’s next?’ and take some control over her financial future.”
Saving for Change is currently operating in Mali, Senegal, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Cambodia. In total, the members in these groups are currently saving more than $9 million. The money these groups save (plus the interest on loans) is distributed to the group members every year when they need it the most, usually just before the harvest when families need food and have back-to-school expenses.
“Saving for Change groups are now starting to be used as platforms to introduce ecological agriculture and business and leadership training,” Ashe says. “We also want to build on initiatives that the women have taken on themselves such as the formation of girls groups and the purchase of grain to tide the members over the ‘hungry season.’”
Saving for Change is continuing to attract members, form new groups, and study the effects of the program on group members. “The objective is to develop a mass-scale and replicable model for building village economies at a modest cost per villager,” says Ashe. “We’ll study the outcomes, and then disseminate this model broadly.”
]]>The macroeconomics of the rising price of staples are complex, but its effect on the lives of three women interviewed by Oxfam America is simple: they feel it every day.
For María Antonia León, or “Toñita”, life has never been easy. She remembers a time when she earned $3 to $4 a day selling tamales, pastries and snacks from her food cart and was able to buy weekly staples to feed her family of five. With this income, she could get six pounds of beans, half a pound of cheese, half a pound of cream, four pounds of rice, eggs, a chicken, and other basics.
“Before, with $20, I was able to fill a shopping cart. Now I can’t… I spend $40 and it’s not enough. I can’t even fill a shopping basket because everything is so expensive. Beans are $2.50, and cooking oil for 15 days is $2. We just can’t manage. This current crisis is really tough,” says Toñita. She doesn’t know how she will find the money to buy shoes or clothes.
But Toñita has now found a way to provide her family with nourishing food: Inspired by Saving for Change, she has started a garden and is raising chickens for their eggs. Saving for Change is an Oxfam program that encourages women to use the capital generated through their savings groups to participate in projects that help them achieve a sustainable livelihood. One such project seeks to promote women’s production capacity, entrepreneurial, and self-reliance skills by helping them establish vegetable gardens.
With her garden, Toñita has a new means to feed her family and avoid paying the high prices at the market. The cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and mustard greens she is growing are providing her family with the vitamins and proteins they weren’t getting before. And now she is teaching other women in her community how to do the same thing. The best part is she sells her extra produce at below market prices to her neighbors facing similar difficulties.
Ana Elizabeth Barrera works at a market in the city of Santa Tecla. She cooks and sells prepared foods, and therefore intimately knows the issue of rising food prices. Ana Elizabeth has seen the price of staples climb steadily over the past five years, but notes an accelerated rise of 60 to 70 percent in the past year, most notably with oil, rice, beans and sugar.
“Six to eight months ago I would invest $100 for oil, rice and other basics, and today I am spending between $150-160 which buys the same amount. Consequently, I have to raise my prices, which means that sales have gone down,” says Ana Elizabeth. She has lost 40 percent of her clientele and has had to let go one of her two employees.
Iris Madrid finds herself in a vulnerable position after losing her job a few weeks ago. Although her income was modest, it was stable and allowed her to buy basic items for her home and support her three children. Now, without a salary and facing rising food costs, she depends on her mother who sells beauty products via catalog.
“If there is detergent, then there is no soap. Or if we have soap, then we have no detergent. If we have beans, then we won’t be eating cheese. If we have cheese, we won’t be eating beans… It hurts because when you have children and they ask you for something, you can’t give it to them,” explains Iris. There are days when all they eat are the mangos from the tree outside her house.
Saving for Change is a program that is growing every day. Since its launch in 2005, it has grown to more than 488,000 members in five countries. The hope is that it will continue to grow and reach people like Ana Elizabeth and Iris, like it has reached Toñita.
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The film screening was part of an effort led by Oxfam and its partners in Chalatenango to help the women participants in Saving for Change groups to improve their entrepreneurial skills and ability to manage small businesses, as well as small-scale agricultural activities and ability to advocate for better policies to address major economic issues related to agriculture and food.
Other activities during the week included cultural acts, such as theater and folklore dances, organized by the women themselves. This is a remarkable accomplishment. For the first time, women felt empowered enough to organize community activities by themselves and for themselves. It’s an example of how teaching women to save and manage their own funds in a Saving for Change group also builds self-esteem.
The documentary, titled Vamos al Grano, described the food price crisis in 2009. The women in the audience noted that the prices in Latin America have not dropped much since then. “The price of a 20 pound sack of beans has gone up to $30, $35; before, it was $10,” says Juana Morales, one of the participants. “This year [2010-2011] the prices have gone up more than ever.” She explains that the high prices are caused by heavy rainfall, which ruined the crops.
All the women who came to view the film are experiencing similar challenges in providing adequate nutrition to their families. The Saving for Change program is helping women to go beyond saving and small investments to improve their small-scale agricultural production through water management, improving soil through organic fertilizer and other means, and better seed selection. Oxfam’s partners in Chalatenango are training women leaders who are then passing on their knowledge to a wider group of Saving for Change members. Discussing the larger economic issues related to food production and supply will help the women to push for better policies at the local and national level that will help small-scale food producers like them to get the help they need to adequately feed their families, and improve their incomes.
Oxfam is currently funding partner organizations CORDES, CCR, and ADEPROCCA to work with 575 women from Saving for Change groups in Chalatengango to improve their food production capacity, start small businesses, and learn to project their concerns and needs on to local and regional government.
“Saving for Change goes beyond just saving and lending money,” says Milagro Maravilla, Oxfam’s Program Coordinator for Saving for Change in Central America. “It’s a perfect way to start organizing women, and that’s what we’ve been doing alongside the savings activity for three years now. It was inspiring to see how they took the lead in organizing these activities, instead of just participating in events organized by national or local organizations. And now that there is such a force of empowered women, Oxfam is helping them with the necessary skills to take themselves a step ahead economically, and to advocate for their rights.”
]]>“Hunger and poverty affect women and men alike, but because women make up the majority of those living below the poverty line, they carry the heaviest burdens,” said Vicky Rateau, Economic Justice Campaign Manager with Oxfam America. “While most of us think of hunger as lack of food, it is actually lack of power. We grow enough food to feed everyone, yet hundreds of millions of women continue to go hungry. On this anniversary of International Women’s Day, we organized ourselves to not forget about these women around the world who will go to bed hungry so their family can eat instead.”
Thousands of Americans from Ames, to Austin to Atlanta are participating Oxfam America Hunger Banquets, house parties, film screenings or panel discussions to celebrate and learn about the plight of women around the world. The events also aim to draw attention to ongoing budget debates in Congress that could lead to cuts in life-saving programs, such as disaster preparedness and food security, which benefit vulnerable communities around the world.
“In Italy, women are given flowers on International Women’s Day. In Cameroon, women dance on the streets, and in China women get the day off,” said Rateau. “From Salem to Spokane, we’re starting a dialogue about food injustices and their global dimensions to honor the rights that women have gained over the last 100 years, but also remember the struggles of women who will still go to bed hungry tonight.”
Women grow a majority of the food in many developing countries, but they often grow hungry. Around the world 925 million people do not have enough food to eat, and women and young children are especially vulnerable. Climate change is only set to make things worse. Nangatio Ivette Cissé, a Malian farmer and treasurer of Mouvement Biologique Mali (MoBioM), an umbrella organization for 76 village co-operatives that grow organic and Fairtrade certified cotton and mangoes in Mali, was a special guest at a number of events.
“Women are always the first ones to rise and the last ones to go to bed,” said Cissé through a translator. “It’s hard work to be a woman farmer, and you have to do it with a child on your back.”
In many poor countries, women are the ones who collect food, water and fuel, maintain the home and look after the children. When food is scarce, women often eat less so other family members can have enough. Most of these rural women rely on farming to earn a living. But although women produce most of the world’s food, they often lack access to vital resources, like a steady source of water or a market where they can sell their crops for a fair price. Climate change poses an added threat, with erratic rainfall and droughts that disrupt the growing season and risk further hunger. Meanwhile, women have fewer opportunities to learn new skills, access credit or find well paying jobs. Seventy five percent of the worlds 876 illiterate adults are women.
Oxfam Ambassador and Sex and the City actor, Kristin Davis, participated in a private Oxfam event in Los Angeles and said, "In my travels with Oxfam, I have been amazed by the women farmers I have met in African countries. Women farmers grow most of the food in the poor countries around the world, often without having equal rights to the land. And they are greatly affected by climate change. These women hold the keys to solving global hunger if they are given a voice and equality in their communities."
“Human rights are not contingent on gender, ethnicity or money in the bank,” continued Rateau. “Human rights are fundamental and non-negotiable. In a world where there is still plenty of food, no one should go hungry no matter who she is and where she lives.”
NOTES:
Oxfam national partners for International Women’s Day events include: Buddhist Global Relief, Africare, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, League of Women Voters, Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, ActionAid, Heart Circle Sangha, Church World Service, Small Planet Institute, National Peace Corps Association, Phap Nguyen Buddhist Congregation, Foundation for Violence-Free Homes Sacred Family, F.I.S.H. Foundation, Inc., Women Thrive, Life for Relief and Development, Foundation for Violence-Free Homes Sacred Family, IMA World Health, Phap Nguyen Buddhist Congregation, Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty, United Methodist Women, Women’s Environment and Development Organization, American Jewish World Service, National Council of Jewish Woman, William Velasquez Institute, and Levi Strauss & Co.
Background in International Women’s Day: In March 1911, more than a million women and men around the world took to the streets in rallies calling for discrimination against women to stop, demanding women’s rights to work, vote, be trained and hold public office. This March, 100 years later, many women and men are coming together to mark this significant anniversary. We at Oxfam have chosen to mark the anniversary by calling attention to the oppression, poverty and hunger that continues to harm hundreds of millions of women around the world.
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