APRIL 2002

Empowering Women Is Critical to Ending Hunger 

One of the greatest obstacles to ending hunger is the subjugation, marginalization and disempowerment of women in many developing countries.

Society holds women responsible for all the key actions required to end hunger: family nutrition, health, education, food production and — increasingly — family income. Yet, through laws, customs and traditions, women are denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to carry out their responsibilities.

The low status of women — an inexcusable injustice in its own right — has far-reaching consequences not only for the health of their families, but also for the health, stability and productivity of their nations.

There are three ways in which ending gender discrimination is critical to ending hunger.

Increasing the Capacity of Women Leaders in South Asia

South Asia is the region of the world with the largest number of hungry people, the highest rates of childhood malnutrition and the most severe subjugation of women. While the future of South Asia depends on solving key issues of health, education, nutrition, population and environment, it is women who are at the front lines of these issues — each and every day.

Yet, for thousands of years in South Asia, women have been kept in a state of powerlessness and isolation. They are malnourished throughout their lives, even during pregnancy, and give birth to malnourished children — in a self-perpetuating cycle.

Today, however, for the first time in 5,000 years, there is an opportunity to transform these conditions. New laws in India and Bangladesh have put real political power into the hands of women, reserving one-third of all seats in elected village councils for women.

The Hunger Project is seizing this opening to empower grassroots women to become effective change agents for a new future. In 2000, The Hunger Project launched the South Asia Initiative. This initiative has a four-pronged strategy: leadership training, advocacy, increasing media coverage and generating international support.

In India, we have pioneered a three-day Women’s Leadership Workshop with locally elected grassroots women leaders. The workshops empower the women to initiate broad-based programs in human development, social justice and economic growth. They are becoming not only the beneficiaries of change, but the key agents for change. To guarantee their success, the women are building strategic alliances and networks with other NGOs, women’s groups and civil society organizations.

In Bangladesh, our highest priority is to greatly increase the number of women we train as "animators" — volunteers who form women’s self-help groups, create their own enterprises and increase their incomes. Women animators have facilitated other women to step out of their households, become literate and learn their legal rights. Animators live and work in all 64 districts of Bangladesh. In 2001, we trained more than 1,700 women animators.

A Lifetime of Subjugation for Women

As a result of women’s subjugation, malnutrition is inherited from generation to generation. The Hunger Project intervenes in the vicious cycle, awakening people to the possibilities of a new future for both women and men.

As investors, our challenge is to match the courage of South Asian women as they break this systematic subjugation and take the actions necessary to end their own hunger. We must find in ourselves the same courage to change our traditional mind-sets and behaviors, and reallocate the resources that are required to support our partners around the world.

Profile:
Dakhon Devi: Leadership in Action

Dakhon Devi, a 45-year-old woman who lives in Bhojapur village in Rajasthan State, participated in The Hunger Project’s Women’s Leadership Workshop in March 2001.

Dakhon was a child widow at the age of 10 and married again at the age of 16 to a widower of 35 years with a daughter. Her association with a local NGO introduced her to the women’s group in the village, where she became the chief of the village women’s collective.

In a recent incident, a mute, deaf widow was deprived of her small piece of land. Dakhon took the whole group of 20 women with her to Falaudi, a 60 km trip from their village by bus, and staged a dharna (protest) outside the court until the guilty party was arrested for illegal occupation of the woman’s land. This was the first time that a police van had ever gone to the village, and it took a four-day protest by Dakhon and her partners to make it happen.

In another incident, Dakhon broke the caste code in her village, where only upper caste people could draw water from the well; the lower castes sometimes had to wait for four to five hours until the upper caste community had left the well. Dakhon protested along with other women of her community against this practice, and announced that from that day forward her community would not be discriminated against in that way.

In Dakhon’s words, "We women were leading a life which can be symbolized by two bricks of ice. We lived a life covered by these two ice bricks. The Hunger Project workshop was like sunlight which poured on me, and the ice started to melt. Today, I am a new person with a fresh pair of eyes and vision."

Today, Dakhon is fearless, dignified and an empowered woman, who can go to any forum or meeting and speak for her rights and for the rights of all women in her village.

Investing in African Women Food Farmers

The African Woman Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI) addresses the critical missing link for the end of hunger in Africa — the economic empowerment of the most important and least supported producers on the continent, the women who grow Africa’s food.

The 1999 Africa Prize for Leadership was dedicated to launching this initiative. We seized the opportunity of the prize ceremony to invest an initial US$1 million in a credit, savings and investment program for the African woman food farmer. To date, the initiative has provided close to US$1 million in loans to 28,000 women in seven African countries.

In addition to increasing women’s economic opportunities, AWFFI is mobilizing public attention across Africa to change government policies and budgets in support of women food farmers.

 

Profile: Margret Gomani is 31 years old, widowed, with two children — a boy and girl of school age. She is from the Ntogolo village of the Zomba District in Malawi. As a widow, she was left with nothing — until she joined AWFFI.

As a member of AWFFI, she was trained in business management skills and later obtained a loan of US$100. She now sells dried fish. Through her untiring efforts, she can feed and clothe her children and meet everyday household needs, and also has managed to cultivate her garden using high-yield seeds. She buys manure for her garden from AWFFI cattle and chicken farmers.

She now lives a happy life, and her children are in school. She works hard and has learned to communicate with others. She says she will remain a member of AWFFI as long as she lives, and is committed to ending poverty and hunger in her household.

Building a New Future in Mexico

In Mexico, 96 percent of people participating in the Vision, Commitment and Action Workshops (VCAWs) are women. More than 85 percent of the facilitators and catalysts trained to deliver VCAWs are women. In addition to their jobs and responsibilities to care for their families, these women dedicate the time and commitment to participate in leadership training, because they see an opportunity for a new future for themselves and their families.

After the VCAW training, the women return to their communities and initiate programs in child nutrition, family health and hygiene, literacy and functional education, and alcohol and drug prevention. Since the program began in 1998, these women have galvanized over 67,000 families in 133 communities in Mexico to take responsibility and concrete action for the end of hunger.

Profile: Margarita Salto

Upon learning of the epicenter strategy in Africa (see September 2001 Investor Newsletter), Margarita Salto became the first Hunger Project–trained catalyst to launch a similar structure in Mexico — the Center for Integral Expansion. Margarita contacted local authorities to obtain a permit to convert an abandoned municipal dump in Miguel Auza, Zacatecas into a community center.

With the hard work of her team of facilitators and catalysts, the center in Miguel Auza is now self-sufficient: providing health services, and literacy and technical education. On 23 March, the center celebrated its first anniversary with a dinner and an exhibition, attended by community members, municipal presidents and four governors.

In addition to her work launching new centers in other states in Mexico, Margarita continues to lead VCAWs twice a month with groups of more than 50 participants. Margarita’s impact extends even beyond Mexico’s border, as she has just returned from leading a training with our partner organization in Bolivia.