News Briefs: June 13, 2006
Determined women seek equality and freedom in a macho world
SAN JAVIER, Bolivia -- For Mari Luz Chuve Rivero, the computer in her office is more than a useful tool—it’s a symbol of the shifting relationship between men and women in her culture.
“It [the computer] gives us freedom from the men’s machines,” says Rivero, who promotes gender awareness.
The same could be said for the motorcycles she and fellow gender workers have learned to ride. They use them to travel to neighbouring villages and towns where they help women contribute more fully in their communities. Rivero and her co-workers are supported in part through Canadian Lutheran World Relief.
Changing attitudes and enabling women to contribute more fully in their homes and community are both a priority and a challenge, says Rivero. Bolivian culture is macho, even among the indigenous people who make up 60 percent of the country’s population.
She has experienced, first-hand, the physical and emotional abuse that many women in the communities experience. “I was the subject of violence in part because of a lack of information on my part,” she said in a recent interview. Violence occurs in marriages and in families. It also happens to young women who go to work as domestic help for the rich in the country.
“Freedom is attained when you meet other people who have suffered and learn about the rights that you have as a woman and as a citizen of this country.”
Rivero and her colleagues have spent a lot of time thinking about gender-related issues and how they play out in their communities. In conversation she focuses on a number of issues that affect girls and women:
- Gender inequality. “This is cultural.”
- Females are shut out of decision making.
- They don’t know their rights, including citizen rights.
- Illiteracy.
- Poor access to job and other training that would benefit them.
“In the past women were generally not valued. Through training services they are gaining self-respect,” says Rivero. “Men also need to be informed about what is right and what is wrong in how they treat women.”
Her work, and that of her co-workers, is making a difference. For example, there are now more women on community boards and women are being elected at the municipal level.
This rise in influence is encouraging women to seek legal recourse if they are abused. There are laws in place that will defend women when they are abused. “This is very important to us,” Rivero says. “Previously this [legal recourse] was not possible. Now the municipal government is sympathetic.”
As well, the municipal government now provides health services for mothers and their newborn children.
—CLWR News Service
An orphaned generation
MAKUENI DISTRICT, Kenya, June 9, 2006 -- A woman and nine children emerge from inside and behind a mud house. There are no men in this family—in general, [men] are a rare sight in this area. HIV and AIDS have scoured the land with many early deaths, leaving behind children, wives, mothers and grandmothers. Twelve million children in sub-Saharan Africa have been orphaned by AIDS, and the number grows daily.
An old woman sits in a chair, extending a hand towards us in welcome. After introductions, Kyikethe Wamwalua thanks us for coming, saying, “It is good that you have come, so you can see the wound you are treating.” She is a grandmother to Catherine Nduku and great-grandmother to the nine children.
Catherine recently benefited from a maize distribution coordinated by Church World Service (CWS), a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, and its local partner, the Africa Brotherhood Church (ABC). She received a total of 100 kilograms of maize, which should feed the family of 11 for about three weeks and help sustain them during the drought that has gripped parts of Kenya. Catherine is responsible for the nine children—four of whom are her own—and her grandmother. All the men here have succumbed to AIDS, including her brother who died two years ago. His wife left after his death.
Since Catherine is the primary caretaker of ten people, she relies heavily on Nzeli, another sister-in-law, who earns around US$30 a month working in a village store. Neighbours have donated used uniforms so that the children can attend school. The family cooks twice a day, using any leftovers for breakfast the next day.
The ABC distribution, sponsored by CWS-ACT, was facilitated by the lead coordinator, Juliana Mulandi. The community selected the members in extreme need, including widows, orphans, the elderly and handicapped, to receive maize. Cowpea, cassava and sweet potato seed were also distributed as alternatives to maize, both to increase nutrition and as a more durable crop.
CWS-ACT will hold another food and seed distribution through ABC next month. Catherine hopes to ration the maize as long as she can, until her cowpeas begin to sprout. She hopes with the improved crop diversity she can increase her children’s nutrition and perhaps supplement the family’s income. She thanks CWS-ACT and ABC for their help so far, not knowing where she would be without it.
—With reports from Evans McGowan, ACT International.
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