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.
]]>Balcha, a 36-year-old widow, has brought us to her home here in the Ethiopian community of Mallima Bari as a sort of bench mark—a way for us to understand where she is in her life at this moment and where she’s determined to go now that she has access to irrigation and the support of a network of other small farmers like herself.
“I will reconstruct my house and show you a better house,” says Balcha firmly. “When I change my house, I will make you coffee.” In Ethiopia, ceremoniously serving guests coffee—three piping hot cups per person—is an important social tradition.
Recently, Balcha joined a group participating in a project launched by Oxfam America’s partner, Sustainable Environment and Development Action, or SEDA. Tapping a well that they helped dig and that SEDA and Oxfam outfitted with a pump and pipes, Balcha and 34 other farmers are funneling water to nine hectares of land--about 24 acres, or a little more than half an acre each. Now, at last, they are free from worry about whether the rain will come on time and in sufficient quantity to guarantee their harvests. With a flick of a switch, they have water on demand—water to feed their crops and build their dreams.
Sitting in front of a field crowded with tall corn, Balcha beams with a surety that would not have been possible a year or so ago. Grief consumed her then: Her oldest child, a 9-year-old boy, had drowned one day while she was away working as a laborer. His dream had been to go to school and he had begged her to send him. But Balcha didn’t have the means.
“He asked me, ‘please, my mom, buy me an exercise book,” she recalled. Her answer? “Next year I can buy you an exercise book and clothes, but this year we don’t even have food.”
Two months later, she said, the terrible accident happened.
In the year that followed, burdened by needs that she could barely meet, Balcha said she thought about leaving her family and running away.
“I was confused,” she said softly.
It was around then that she learned of the irrigation project and the opportunity to join it.
“I was suffering before I joined this project because I didn’t have my husband. I didn’t have any support,” said Balcha. ”Now I have clothes for my body, food for my stomach, and my field is in good condition. When you are hungry, you can’t think of getting satisfied. When you are thirsty you can’t think of getting enough water. But now I’m satisfied.”
Balcha’s story speaks for others in a district where many rural residents make their living by raising animals and cultivating crops on fields fed only by rain. But it’s a hard life—and sometimes an impossible one. In this Central Rift Valley, severe food shortages are a frequent problem.
Without money to put into better production—fertilizer for plants, and infrastructure for irrigation—farmers can’t easily coax much from their land. Instead, like Balcha, they rent their fields to investors who can afford the technology to reap bountiful harvests. And sometimes, small farmers become day laborers on land that is theirs, working for someone else’s profit instead of their own.
But for the group now tilling this 24-acre plot, a reliable source of water could change their lives and the lives of their families. The project is part of a broader Oxfam America water program, set to run through 2020, that works with communities and local partners to help some of the poorest Ethiopians in moisture-stressed regions access water for their fields and animals and manage the resource in a sustainable fashion. With water comes food—and resilience.
Here, in Mallima Bari, the hope is that farmers will begin to cultivate valuable market crops—onions, tomatoes, green peppers, cabbages—that could boost their incomes. From the sale of their harvests, participants, who have formed the Mallima Gale Small-Scale Irrigation Co-op, will pool 10 percent of their earnings toward keeping the irrigation enterprise running. One of the biggest costs is fuel, now running at about 17 birr per liter—close to $4 a gallon. It takes about six liters of fuel each time a farmer pumps water through a half-acre field.
But it’s not just the pump and water that have brightened prospects for Balcha, it’s the deeper connection she has made with her neighbors in the irrigation group and the spirit of cooperation.
“We have very good collaboration,” says Balcha, noting that she had her fields plowed with the help of co-op members and their oxen. Ethiopians measure their land in hectares. One hectare is nearly equal to 2.5 acres. Balcha’s irrigated plot of corn measures a quarter hectare. In addition, she has a half-hectare of rain-fed corn and a quarter hectare of Ethiopia’s staple grain, teff, which is also dependent on the rain.
New agricultural techniques she learned through SEDA could help her crops do better than they have in the past, and the results so far have made her optimistic. She is planting her corn in rows now instead of broadcasting it loosely, and expects the December harvest will produce enough to feed her family as well as some to sell.
“Physically, it looks healthy,” says Balcha. “When you look at it, you get encouraged.”
And with that feeling of encouragement comes the taste of possibility: For Balcha, that means school for her children—an opportunity she never had.
“Had I had an education, I would have been someone better than I am now,” says Balcha. “I’m in darkness myself. I want them to be in light.”
]]>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.
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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Sorn says she spends less time weeding her fields than she used to since she started using a mechanical weeding device she helped create with assistance from Oxfam’s partner in Cambodia, RACHANA, an organization based in the southern Takeo province. When farmers use this new tool, they can accomplish in a few hours what used to take them many days.
Oxfam supported RACHANA in designing and testing the mechanical weeders that help farmers grow more rice. Switching to innovative rice-growing systems and using a mechanical weeder can create more than 100 percent gains in production—a huge improvement for small-scale rice growers like Sorn and her sister.
Sorn is among 100 families in the area growing rice using an array of special methods called the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI. SRI represents an accessible form of innovation for small-scale farmers like Sorn: it boosts yields through different ways of plowing fields and improving soil fertility, and of planting and transplanting rice. SRI helps the plants grow stronger and more resistant to pests and diseases. It doesn't require special seed varieties. And because the plants are healthier, the farmers need less fertilizer and pesticides, which saves them money and preserves the environment.
One of SRI’s techniques involves transplanting single seedlings farther apart, instead of transplanting them in bunches. The distance helps seedlings grow stronger roots. SRI farmers plant their seedlings in rows, so they can weed around the plants more easily. A mechanical weeder helps them speed up the process.
In Sorn’s village of Prey Pa’e, RACHANA found a metalworker named Ben Pen who was willing to work with the local farmers to develop the weeders. With RACHANA’s help, in 2009 he began to adapt designs from India and other countries; he optimized them based on feedback from women farmers. Sorn and about 20 others tested five prototypes. With Pen, they developed one- and two-wheel weeders, which farmers use for different soil and weed conditions. The weeders weigh between 4 and 12 pounds. Each of them has a long handle with which the farmers push narrow wheels with steel spikes, churning the earth and tearing up the weeds.
Most of the farmers responsible for testing the weeders were women. Though men help prepare the soil and assist with the harvest, women do most of the work in the fields. Pen and RACHANA wanted to make sure that the weeder designs are suitable for them. “These weeders are helping women avoid back pain, and neck pain,” Pen says. “They can stand up, and it’s a lot faster.”
Sorn moves down the rows between the rice plants pushing the weeder in front of her like a lawn mower. The tool splashes through a thin layer of water, cutting up clumps of grass and mud.
“There’s quite a difference when you use the weeding tools,” Sorn says. “If you weed by hand you only get the top of the weed, you don’t get the root, and it grows again. When you use the weeding tool, it destroys the root and churns the weed into the soil—it’s better for the soil.”
Sorn farms a little less than two acres. Having the weeder helps Sorn and her sister get their weeding done faster. She says saving this time and labor is particularly important for her now: her husband passed away and her six children are all grown and have left the village to work and study. She’s 55, alone, and needs the help.
RACHANA’s research showed that by combining weeders with SRI, farmers could increase their production to average 5.6 tons per hectare, up from an average of 2.2 tons using traditional techniques. (A hectare is about 2.45 acres.) The organization ordered 900 of the three most popular weeders from Pen; it is selling them to farmers across the country. The tools cost about $20—a significant investment, prompting groups of two or three neighbors to buy the tools together and share them.
The investment is worth the time saved: the women in Prey Pa’e say it takes three people two weeks to weed a hectare, and by the time they finish, the weeds are already growing again. “With the weeder, three people can finish in one morning,” says Pen Rat, who was part of the prototype testing team.
Sorn says she helped test the one-wheel weeder, and suggested that Pen lower the angle of the handle, so women would be pushing at waist level. “I thought women would have more strength to push and pull,” she says.
Simple forms of innovation, like these mechanical weeders, encourage farmers to come together, share their ideas, and play a role in developing technological improvements for their farming. This type of endeavor is just a small part of Oxfam’s work to transform agriculture for the poorest farmers in Cambodia.
Farmers like Sorn Ken confirm this: “Having this weeder is like having another person,” she says.
]]>While time is running out, the global crises push the Millennium Development Goals desperately off course. The only chance of avoiding failure is a rescue plan for all MDGs that includes the necessary measures, both political and financial. Halving hunger is still possible if developing countries take the lead with the right policies and investments, donor countries increase dramatically their aid to agriculture, food security and social protection under nationally and regionally-driven plans, and the global issues affecting food security are collectively addressed.
]]>Members of Oxfam International have also provided grant support for neighborhood social programs, such as the world-renowned Martin Luther King Center, a leader in popular education.
Cuba's civil evacuation and protection system is widely renowned for its excellence. Oxfam works with Cuba's Civil Defense to help communities prepare for disasters and has helped Cuba significantly reduce its vulnerability to hurricanes. In 2004 Oxfam America, as part of Oxfam International, documented these experiences and lessons in the publication "Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction in Cuba."
Gender equality is a priority in all the projects Oxfam supports. While Cuban women enjoy a wide array of rights, there continue to be gaps, particularly at home. Supporting research and sensitivity training, particularly in regards to violence against women, is a priority for Oxfam in Cuba.
As part of Oxfam International, Oxfam America has contributed roughly $1.1 million to Oxfam International's work in Cuba since 1995. All of Oxfam America's grants were approved by the US Department of State, and mostly supported agricultural transformation projects designed to improve food security.
]]>Even one event like this—and there are others including flash floods, shortages of fodder, drought—can have devastating consequences on the availability of food, especially for people who depend heavily on their animals and agriculture. Decades of conflict have prevented many of them from being able to strengthen or diversify their means of making a living.
It is harsh realities like these that a $250,000 Oxfam program has helped to remedy for 2,000 families in 40 villages scattered through the Daikundi and Bamiyan provinces. With high-quality seeds, some technical training, and a boost from a supply of fertilizer, families were able to grow a whole range of produce.
"This is the first time in my life that I have eaten these vegetables," said one 65-year-old resident of Jingan village, showing off a pumpkin plucked from a garden that also produced lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, and tomatoes. "We now save money and have a better diet."
But the program has done more than just help people produce new harvests. It has planted the seeds for their future development, too. Literacy classes for women, construction of a pair of greenhouses, and training in animal breeding to improve local herds were also among the projects initiated in this remote region.
Though a great deal remains to be done before villages can wrench themselves free of crippling poverty, projects that help people improve their standard of living have fed the aspirations of many.
"I hope that one day I will be able to read and write and will know what is happening the world around us," said a young mother named Razia, who brings her one-year-old daughter to the literacy classes sponsored by Oxfam in the village of Gochan.
The literacy classes, held in 20 communities, have been so popular that villagers have asked Oxfam to offer them for men as well. For girls who have never had the opportunity to go to school, the classes give them the basics in reading and writing—with the hope that some students will be able to continue with their educations in nearby schools.
Education, in fact, is the basis for much of this rural development initiative—from villagers learning about new seeds to improved husbandry practices. The ultimate goal is to help make sure that food is more readily available for many of the people in these rugged communities. Families chosen to participate include those caring for handicapped children, ones headed by women, and households without land and little opportunity to earn an income. All told, about 14,000 people have indirectly benefitted from the program.
With basic diets of bread, tea, and only occasionally a bit of mutton, villagers showed particular interest in learning about vegetable gardening. In separate classes for men and women, participants learned how to cultivate an array of new seeds, how to fertilize the soil, and when to harvest the vegetables and process them, too.
But challenges remain. Adverse weather and limited water often add up to small harvests. And farmers need more training on sustainable approaches to agriculture, such as through the creation of seed banks.
The establishment of orchards—a new activity for many people—also sparked interest. Thirty farmers each received 100 saplings including walnuts, pears, apples, almonds, apricots, and peaches. And 10 farmers also got the tools needed to graft fruit trees to aid in the creation of new orchards. Courses offered farmers training on the establishment and management of nurseries and garden design.
Oxfam also provided training on animal breeding and livestock management. A total of 26 new calves were born under the program and 20,000 animals received vaccinations against a host of ills including parasites and liver worms.
"Given the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and the past decades of conflict and insecurity, the local communities still have a long way to go in establishing sustainable community structures, livelihoods and environmental protection," said a final report on the project.
What's the answer? Oxfam sees the need for a long-term commitment to these villages so that local people can become empowered to undertake development initiatives that would ensure greater food security for everyone.
]]>"When you educate your children, you provide a good generation for your community," says Abbis, 50.
That's the mantra that has helped to make her such a successful member of the Tea and Food Sellers Cooperative operating in the sprawling, dusty Elshabe market in Khartoum. It's one of three women's cooperatives that Oxfam America's partner, the Sudan Development Association or SDA, helped to launch. And now, with a new $50,000 grant from Oxfam, SDA is set to further expand its outreach to women vendors in the city by offering skills and management training, exploring new economic opportunities for them, and facilitating loans that will allow them to increase their incomes.
Established in 1990, SDA's central mission is to empower women. It started with the simplest of projects: a study of women vendors in Khartoum's markets—a group of people whose numbers had surged, but who faced few opportunities and little social support.
At the time, drought and conflict had driven many women and their children to Khartoum where the only way they could make money to support themselves was to sell food or tea in the markets, said Rugaia Salih Mohamed, SDA's program director. But they were not well-received.
"They were viewed as inferior," says Mohamed. And often, they were harassed or had their goods confiscated.
But with SDA's help, the women came together and formed a series of cooperatives, which offered them protection under the law, as well as financial and technical support—in short, a way for them to pull themselves out of the poverty that saddled them.
"Now, they know their rights," says Mohamed. "They can support their families and they don't need others to support them. It's liberating."
Among the projects the women launched was the Women Food and Tea Sellers Cooperative Restaurant. Housed in a long, narrow room in a building inside the market, the restaurant has a handful of tables and chairs at one end and a charcoal fire burning next to the wall. Co-op members can cook and sell their food here.
"They don't just stick to selling food and tea. They help others claim their rights," adds Mohamed. "Now, their children are going to university and they acquire other places themselves."
A few alleys away, in the mottled light of an expansive stall, co-op member Hiat Adam, draped in a peach-colored wrap, is serving tea from behind a tiny table. Each serving, offered in small, clear glasses, costs about 25 cents. Customers can also buy coffee for about 50 cents.
Joining the co-op was a pivotal point for Adam and the business she wanted to launch: The co-op provided her with a license so she could secure the space she needed to run her tea service. It also offered her the requisite health training.
"It's good to be a member," says Adam. "If you are working alone it's difficult to have a license."
Divorced and the mother of six children for whom she has sole responsibility, Adam is using the proceeds from her tea business to buy food for them and to send some of them to school.
"They have learned a lot," says Mohamed of the women in the co-op. "You can see the progress in everything—in their style, in their home, in their children, in their interaction."
]]>Shito Massele, a 30-year-old mother of four, sits outside, her back against the warehouse wall. She is one of 96 members of the Qubse cooperative, a cereal bank run by women and funded by Oxfam. In a community where women previously were not consulted on business decisions, today they are ensuring economic and food security for themselves and their families. In fact, their work will turn a profit, generating additional income for their village.
"Before, the women were not even supposed to come near the scale," Shito says. "Now we can weigh things ourselves, our own grain." On this property, the women are not just weighing the grain; they are also fixing the price and deciding when and where to sell it. The land is theirs as well, donated by the village administration.
The cereal bank began nine months ago, with help from Oxfam America and OSRA and the encouragement of the village administration. Given a warehouse and seed money, the cooperative now controls the purchase, storage, and sale of grain.
In Oromiya region, where the project is based, having control of these basic factors has a huge impact. Before the cooperative was established, farmers were forced to sell most of their crops immediately after harvest to settle loans and taxes. During the rainy season, grain was scarce and prices rose. To feed their families, farmers were forced to take out more loans at high interest rates—sometimes simply to buy back their own crops, continuing the cycle of poverty.
The new cereal bank has enabled the community to store some of its harvest, setting grain aside for sale during the rainy season when the market price is high. The women thereby make a profit and ensure food stability for the next planting season.
The cereal bank's organizers stipulated that each prospective member had to attend civic education classes focusing on women's rights. The combined impact of both the classes and the cereal bank has been enormous.
Following the training, attitudes toward traditional practices harmful to women have changed noticeably. Furthermore, the women have proved themselves just as capable of earning an income as men are, thereby gaining the respect of the entire community. Indeed, many farmers prefer to sell their grain to the cooperative because of its reputation for honesty; the women will not try to cheat the farmer.
Being valued in the community is new to the women, but hard work is not. Before the cereal bank, women had little power, according to 46-year-old Abebu Kebebe. She recites her daily activities in a monotone, as if it is a chant she is used to repeating:
"For us it is clear that men are not stronger than us. Early in the morning, I clean the house and take care of the animals, travel two hours to collect murky water, return, cook, take care of the children. It is the oldest burden. Nothing is as simple as it seems. We do a lot of work the whole day, but [the men] move oxen and plow for an afternoon and come home. They move the animals and consider they moved a mountain."
Now, however, the women make all decisions involving the cereal bank, and are able to control their finances and ensure their own economic security.
The success of the Qubse cooperative has not gone unnoticed in neighboring villages. Three kilometers away, another group of women approached OSRA and their village administration, asking if they too could start a similar project. Dirre Dame, 67, chairwoman of the new cooperative, says it began because "we were encouraged by the group, so we organized ourselves, inspired."
The new cooperative, Association Gura, has only been around for a month, but the impact on the women is already noticeable as they plan what to do with the eventual profits. This is the first time these women have had any economic power. In a village where the nearest school is a three-hour walk away, women see this is the beginning of change and a better life for their children.
Some of the changes may seem basic: food, clothes, education for their children. Other women have bigger dreams, hoping to invest in land or animals some day. Right now, however, they focus on meeting the basic necessities, including a secure source of food. They plan eventually to build a small health clinic with the profits, noting that many women die in childbirth because there is no clinic nearby.
Regatto Bedhasa, a 57-year-old mother of six, explains what empowering women to take control of their lives has meant to her community:
"This becomes a hope for us," she says. "We can change our life without having been educated, without knowledge, without experience. We can change our situation."
]]>AWC's greatest strength is its connection to local communities. Beneficiaries for food relief are selected based on vulnerability with priority given to the elderly, the chronically ill, widows, orphans, and child-headed households. Food is distributed in the presence of the community, and people are encouraged to speak up if they feel that there is a discrepancy or injustice in the allocation system.
Local women run the impartial, apolitical food distribution system. The organization is well established and has a good reputation, and the communities themselves are directly involved in the distribution process through their AWC members and representatives.
As of early March, the breakdown among the 13,200 beneficiary families was as follows:
Individual families receive 20 kg of maize per month or 50 kg when supplies are adequate. Household size is taken into account with larger households given greater amounts. Efforts are made to deliver in each area once a month.
The system is extraordinarily successful because it places a priority on transparency, ongoing community involvement, women's control of the distribution process, the "prohibition on politics" within AWC business, non-local AWC staff monitoring, and local leadership awareness and support of the distribution process.
Zimbabwe is facing a food shortage that will most likely continue until the next harvest season in April, 2004. AWC is expanding its relief program, adding additional rehabilitation measures such as bean distributions, water pumps, and micro finance programs.
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