Articles about empowered women
A shelter gives at-risk women comfort — and the skills to live a more productive life.
Helping Women End the Nightmare
Photo: USAID/Fernando ArèvaloFrom left) Monseñor Alvaro Ramazzini, Bishop of San Marcos, Guatemala; Vinicio Barrios Gonzalez, Mayor of Tecún Umáan; Sister Luz Angèlica Garcìa, Director of La Casa de Mujer; and Bruce Wharton of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala attended the inauguration of Casa de la Mujer.">
"In this world a woman tries to get ahead, but she is exploited, abused, and dumped into a world of violence and prostitution. Casa de la mujer helped me break free and ended my nightmare."
— Marcia
http://www.usaid.gov/stories/guatemala/fp_guatemala_casa.html
Marcia is Ecuadorian, a devoted grandmother with a small business. With hopes of a better life, Marcia decided to risk migrating to the United States. For her $10,000 payment, Marcia received water, fruit and a ride in a flimsy boat. But after 16 days on the high seas, her journey ended abruptly. The boat disembarked in Guatemala, where the "coyotes" she'd paid left her. Marcia ended up in the village of La Verde, where she accepted one woman's offer to take her to the United States for $1,500. The woman never lived up to her promise.
In desperation, Marcia approached a local priest for help. He told her about Casa de la Mujer, a USAID-supported shelter and training center in the border town of Tecún Umán. At Casa de la Mujer, Marcia was given hospitality and food — and she also learned how to produce commercial cleaning products for sale. Armed with a wheelbarrow and years of experience as a saleswoman, Marcia now sells her products door-to-door. Her work paid off; Marcia has built a loyal clientele and supports many of the women and children residing at the Casa, while saving money for when she leaves the Casa.
Casa de la Mujer's training center, Casa Antonia, offers 150 women training in how to sew, style hair and make cleaning products. A third of the women were victims of trafficking, while the rest were considered at risk — daughters of prostitutes, friends or relatives of drug traffickers, friends or relatives of gang members, or illiterate and poor youth. Community members now regularly come to the Casa to buy haircuts, make-up, clothes and cleaning products.
Marcia says that the training center is critical for women and children who fall into the clutches of traffickers because it gives them the comfort, safety and skills to find productive alternatives to violence and prostitution.
Marcia plans to earn enough money to return to Ecuador and be reunited with her family. Still, her dream to move to the United States someday lives on. Now she says that if she is ever to get to the United States, she will do so legally because the risk of traveling without the proper documents is too high. Marcia says she learned the hard way and is happy she survived the lesson — thanks to the safe haven at Casa de la Mujer.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/0,,contentMDK:20381883~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258599,00.html
Empowered Women Bring Change to Post-war Tajikistan
Thirty year old Soro’s life has changed. A divorced mother of three, she not only struggled to make ends meet but was treated with scant respect in her conservative community.“I was alone and in despair,” Soro recalls. “After my father died, I moved in with my brother’s family, living from hand to mouth by sewing dresses.”
Now, one can hardly recognize this once-shy woman. A World Bank grant to empower women has transformed her. And she in turn has begun to transform her oncealienated and war-torn community.
Poor, isolated, and inward-looking
Bibi Soro, as she is known, lives in the Buston Mahalla, an impoverishedneighborhood on the dusty outskirts of Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe. As a woman in a conservative Islamic society, Soro grew up in strict Islamic tradition.
Soro's remote and isolated communityhad long looked at outsiderswith suspicion, and in the country’s bitter civil war,Buston's residents fought on the side of the militant Islamic opposition, holding out till the very last against central government control.
The loss of the war further alienated the disgruntled community. Homes were destroyed and families lost breadwinners -husbands, sons and brothers. Many of those who survived went to work in Russia, leaving the women behind with little means of support. Extended families sometimes housed 44 members under one roof, and food was often scarce.
With the opposition's forcesstillin operation,the community was like a tinder-box wherestray sparks could at anytimereignitepassions, leading to a renewed flare-up of violence.
A bold initiative to empower women
Preventing the recurrence ofconflict in a post-war community is always a challenge, especially after a war is lost. Often, one of the best ways to bring about reconciliation is to empower the womenof such communities to take on the mantle of leadership.
Accordingly, in 2002, the World Bank allocated a grant from the Post Conflict Fund to a U.S non-governmental organization, Counterpart International, for a Women's Empowerment Pilot Project. Doing so meant reversing the centuries-old social order in this troubled neighborhood.
“When I first discussed the idea of women’s empowerment with the Tajik government, they didn’t quite understand what I meant to do. However, from my previous work in country, they thought I could start a pilot in one of the most difficult post-conflict areas, where theopposition still operated and NGOs and donors didn’t dare to enter,” said Hermine de Soto, the former World Bank’s project team leader. “If we succeeded in Buston, the officials said, we would succeed anywhere in Tajikistan.”
Overcoming resistance
And, a yearsince the project began, succeed they have. After first reassuring male relatives and community leaders that the project didn’t aim to convert the women to Christianity, the project has brought a marked change in the women.
Through workshops and training, the women have developed a new sense of confidence. Those who were unable to look their trainers in the eye now openly express their opinions and discuss business proposals with men on equal terms.
Over 200 women have joined the nongovernmental organization, ‘Bonuvoni Navovar’-- Tajik for ‘Women Innovators’. The women have been trained in business and job skills, and given access to credit. In 2003 alone, some 85 women found jobs and received credit for animal rearing, retail, and small processing activities, enabling them to generate much-needed income. All loans have been repaid on time.
Where men once failed, the women tackle long-standing community problems
A bold women’s initiative has brought much-needed water to the neighborhood, tackling one of the community’s most enduring problems which the men were unable to solve for many years.
A center has been established where the women can meet and discuss broad community issues without depending on men. The center has trained women in healthcare, and now channels much-needed medicines to the new clinic, and provides computer training to the local school.
A bakery, Sladko-Ezhka or Sweet Tooth, has been set up to enable the Women’s Center to continue its activities by generating a steady income once World Bank assistance comes to an end. And in a revolutionary move, the women have chosen their own leaders, a democratic tradition completely new to the community. These women leaders have traveled to other parts of the country as well as to projects in Kyrgyzstan to broaden their horizons and exchange experiences, putting an end to the community’s long isolation.
A success beyond imagination
“The Women's Empowerment project has been successful beyond my imagination,” says Andrea Burniske, Counterpart International’s former local director. “By assuming leadership roles, these women have been able to address all the community’s priority problems.This has raised their stature within the community, and they feel proud of their achievements. Women members of Bonuvoni Navovar have acquired skills and knowledge that have changed their lives forever.”
Burniske cites an important lesson from experience, “Male communityleaders are unlikely to empower women. Instead, it is innovative women - women who are willing to risk change- who can make a difference in their communities when provided with leadership skills and support." De Soto agrees, “In the truest sense, because of everyone’s efforts, the women began to empower themselves.”
Women as catalysts of change in conservative Tajikistan
“I wish we had had those seminars earlier,” says Bibi Soro wistfully, thinking of her lost years. ”They opened a new world before us....I learnt to use a computer and gained administrative and planning skills. And now I am the director of ‘Bonuvoni Navovar’,” she adds with her new-found sense of confidence.
As true vanguards of change in conservative Tajikistan, Bibi Soro and her colleagues plan to build on their pioneering successes by launching similar activities to empower women in other poor regions of the country. And this time, they have the support of the men. The old, unequal, social order is indeed beginning to turn in this remote region of Central Asia.
Counterpart-Assisted Dushanbe Bakery Opens Its Doors For Business /
The Proud Bakers
http://www.counterpart.org/dnn/Default.aspx?tabid=49&metaid=983
For the women of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the domestic chore of baking bread has migrated from the hearth of their homes, to the heart of the business marketplace.
Contact: Katherine Schad,
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (Monday, August 09, 2004) -- For the women of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the domestic chore of baking bread has migrated from the hearth of their homes, to the heart of the business marketplace.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004 marks the grand opening of the Sladko-Ezhka Bakery, a small business designed to empower its women employees in the neighborhood of Karatenginskya.
"These women have taken a skill that they know best and turned it into a tool for economic growth," explains Don Feil, vice president of Counterpart International's Enterprise Development programs. "By starting a business, they're forming a bond among themselves, contributing to their community, and taking stake in both their personal and family futures."
Sladko-Ezhka, Russian for "Sweet Tooth", is the creation of its parent nonprofit organization, Bonuvoni Navovar, a community center founded and developed with assistance from Counterpart International's Women's Empowerment and Socio-Economic Development Program and managed by Andrea Burniske. The neighborhood of Karateginskya has been especially receptive to the World Bank-funded center because it sees tangible impacts on the welfare of the community as a whole.
"Without economic opportunities, people can't reach their full potential. Our innovative development models offer access to healthy business environments that lead to increased income and job creation," says Feil.
Sladko-Ezhka will sell traditional Russian treats which fell to the wayside when political and economic strife ravaged the local communities. In addition to providing its employees with regular paychecks, the profits the bakery generates will be recycled back to the community center as a means for future business creation and program development.
Counterpart facilitates a variety of job skills and other trainings through Bonuvoni Navovar, and grants small loans through a fund designed to help support women's individual business startup and expansion projects.
Counterpart International has economic development activities in communities around the world. Its programs are demand-driven and undertaken in partnership with local institutions. Counterpart believes in achieving sustainable success through weaving its enterprise development practices together with communities' extensive needs - from healthcare to environment and food security.
Making Value-Added Food Products in Mozambique
Mozambique | Agriculture, Economic Growth | 2005
http://www.dec.org/partners/afr/ss/search_details.cfm?storyID=347&countryID=15§orID=0&yearID=5
http://www.usaid.gov/stories/mozambique/pc_mz_vitagoat.html
USAID partner Africare selected businesswoman Rita Lazaro to lead a pilot rural enterprise project making soy milk and other high-nutrition products with a VitaGoat food-processing system. Lazaro is a successful oil processor in Munhinga in central Mozambique's Manica Province, where she employs three workers to help press sesame and sunflower oil. The mother of two is also a leader in Africare's USAID-funded food security program in Manica. Lazaro works with more than 150 families in the program, teaching them improved agriculture and nutrition practices.
Photo Credit: Melissa Thompson/USAID
VitaGoat is technology specifically designed for conditions in rural Africa. The key feature is that it requires no electricity. To make soy milk, soaked soybeans first are ground using a grinder powered by a stationary bicycle. The beans then are mixed with water and put in a stainless-steel pressure cooker heated by a wood-fired steam boiler. The final step is to filter the product using a manual press. The VitaGoat gives small producers with limited resources the opportunity to make 30 liters an hour of soy milk and yogurt, as well as other value-added products including peanut butter, tomato juice, and ground coffee.
Africare installed the VitaGoat at Lazaro's compound in May 2004. The machine works well, but milk distribution has been hampered by the fact that the product spoils after 24 hours. Lazaro and Africare are researching what type of packaging will provide longer life for the milk, which will be sold and used in Africare's anti-malnutrition efforts.
Small Loans Help Women Entrepreneurs
Photo: Robert Bengtson, FINCA InternationalMadame Fanfan has progressed from selling rice by the roadside to purchasing a prime location in the market and running her own restaurant.
http://www.usaid.gov/stories/haiti/pc_haiti_restaurantmicroloan.html
Madame Fanfan used to sell rice on the side of the road to support herself and her family and worried every day about whether she would be able to put food on the table for her five children.
But after receiving a small loan from USAID, she was able to purchase a stall in a prime location in the market and has diversified her wares beyond rice to include flour, coffee, oil, and other products. She has also opened a small restaurant and plans to open an even bigger restaurant to serve the visitors who come to her community since the new airport was built nearby.
Madame Fanfan says that thanks to the financial services USAID provided her, she no longer has to worry about whether her children will be able to eat every day, and that she can relax at night and enjoy time with her family.
USAID provides small loans and other financial services to the poorest Haitian women so they can create or improve their own small businesses. In December 2004, a $400,000 increase in capital allowed the program to increase its outreach to women like Madame Fanfan by more than 35 percent.