Whether you live in Africa, India, or elsewhere in the developing world, if you’re a woman living in poverty, you have a lot in common with your sisters. Millions of women battle man-made disadvantages including:
- being barred from owning land (although 43% of women in these countries farm the land, only 1% own any of it).
- not being able to get credit or insurance
- not having access to quality seed, fertilizer, tools or equipment
- not having a collective voice to protest against domestic and sexual violence, or to reach policymakers
The challenges seem huge and the injustice entrenched. Yet WeBlogTheWorld.com features five bright ideas that are helping women find their own way:
- In Kibera, a sprawling Nairobi slum, women are greening urban wasteland through ‘vertical farming’ – growing vital food crops in dirt sacks.
- FANRPAN’s Street Theatre acts out the issues women farmers face in Malawi and Mozambique, and helps the audience discuss and share solutions after the show.
- In many parts of India, female trade union SEWA ‘organises women as workers, and builds their collective strength, voice and visibility’.
- In 1500 villages spread across Tamil Nadu in India, the Women’s Collective is bringing women together to combat domestic and sexual violence, teaching natural farming to improve yields, and working for a more consistent water supply.
- The Green Foundation in India’s Karnataka state is helping women access another kind of wealth, creating high quality seed banks that result in better harvests and even surplus vegetables that women can sell.
Here at the Shingirirai Trust, we too believe that regenerating communities begins with empowering the women who will feed, clothe, care for and educate the next generation. If you’d like to help bring in this ‘harvest of hope’, please go to our Appeals page and give what you feel is a useful amount. £10 will keep a little boy or girl in preschool for a month, where their primary education can grow firm roots!
Thanks for reading, and please share if you are germinating similar bright ideas for women to work with.
