Hi Everybody,
Writing from our hotel in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Just finished the last day of field visits.
I hit a wall today, physically. I was just too exhausted to really be present while being paraded around various villages. I'm ready to be home.
But I've been picking up some basic Bengali (Bangla), which has been fun. If I stayed here for another week I might be able to hold a really simple conversation. So far I can say: Hello, Goodbye, Thanks, How are you?, I'm doing fine, Everything is alright, Friend, Beautiful, Breakfast, Water, 1-2-3, My name is, I'm from America, I work at IDEX, I speak a little Bangla, What?, and Where is the toilet? Of course I'll forget it all by next week.... sigh.
My motivation? Part of the challenge in Bangladesh has been that the translation capacity of the NGO staff from Bangla to English hasn't been as good as I would have hoped. And Bengali village women are a gregarious bunch... they all talk at once, shouting and laughing and interrupting each other. So I'll be sitting in these meetings and they are all going on for a while at me, arguing and cajoling and telling stories, but I get the three sentence simplified version of something that just went on for ten minutes.
And Bengali society is anything but simple. It's the most densely populated country in the world (137 million people in an area that I would hazard to guess is smaller than Texas), but the majority of the population is rural. There are so many different dynamics going on. It's a predominantly Muslim society, but there are various different kinds of Muslim identity. Most folks seem to follow a relatively liberal kind of Islam, which I believe has Sufi roots. But there is also a fundamentalist movement, which has a political base in some rural areas. I get the sense that there are some parallels here with the U.S. in that the majority of Americans are Christian in the "I celebrate Christmas and occasionally go to church" way, and then there's this small but powerful movement of evangelicals.
Also similar to the U.S., there are major swaths of people who are not in the dominant religion. In this case, the major minority is Hindu, but there are also small Christian, Buddhist and animist groups. So there is a lot of variety here. A few people have sworn to me that everyone gets along just fine, "Really, we're all friends! No problems at all." they say rather insistently. But the founder of one women's rights organization, who is Hindu, tells me that anyone who insists that there is no discrimination against Hindus is lying or in denial (maybe sort of like the people who insist that there's no racism in the U.S.?). Amongst other problems, the military-backed government, who has accused her of being a spy for the Indian secret service, has harassed her.
So, a bit about the orgs I've visited in the last week or so. It's in some ways very similar to the stuff that IDEX is supporting in Nepal. Everyone is working to form women's self-help groups in rural villages. Through this process women go through skills development training, leadership training etc. and in most cases can apply to get small loans for income-generating activities. An interesting variation here is a major focus on a rights-based approach, where women learn about their legal rights and are encouraged to speak out against domestic violence, early marriage, trafficking and child abuse.
Two of the organizations we've visited here, ACD and OWDEB, are working at many levels of village life, not only directly organizing the poorest women in the villages, but also helping start Community Forums made up of village leaders, including the local schoolteacher, doctor, journalist, politicians, etc. These folks come together once a month to talk about whatever problems the village is facing, particularly (but not exclusively) as relates to women's issues and child rights. They intervene when there is domestic violence, or child marriage (marrying anyone under 18 years of age is illegal, and people are beginning to take it very seriously). They act as mediators in situations of family conflict that threaten to turn (or have turned) violent. They help women file court cases and get legal and health services when they've been sexually abused or trafficked. They encourage parents to keep their kids in school, and help families get their children registered. They encourage women to register to vote. In some cases they also take on infrastructure issues, like how to get potable drinking water, toilets or decent roads.
By getting respected village leaders involved and interested in the issues affecting the poorest women, the NGOs are building bridges within the community such that there are resourceful people there to support the women long after the NGO workers are gone. As an outsider, it's been fascinating for me to talk with these powerbrokers, doctors, lawyers and teachers, and hear them speak passionately about their commitment to women's empowerment. And the gender dynamics of the room speak of their sincerity: of the ten to twenty folks involved, usually close to half are women, and they speak with the same confidence as the men. Definitely not my stereotype of a predominantly Muslim society.
Well, I have much more to tell you but I've run out of time...
We start the journey home tomorrow night and I'll be back home by Mon afternoon, Inshallah.
There will be lots of great photos to share and hopefully some multimedia slideshows to upload to the web in a few weeks’ time.
See you soon!
Yael
Hi,
We spent the last couple of days with Women's Awareness Center Nepal (Nari Chetna Kendra to locals). It was cool to visit with them after seeing ASHA's work because it was almost like fast-forwarding 10 years.
WACN started off in 1991 helping build informal savings and credit groups similar to the ones I visited in Okarpauwa. Over time they have helped the groups come together to form 36 larger, more powerful cooperatives ranging from 200 to 865 members each. These are formal legal institutions, giving them more structure and staying power. Most of the cooperatives function completely independently of WACN at this point, with their own local staff and offices. It's a great model, as they don't depend on NGOs or international donors to grow.
Together, WACN's cooperatives have over $2.5 million dollars of capital in circulation. They use this money for the typical loans I mentioned before - sustainable agriculture, buffalo rearing, opening small shops, sending kids to school, etc. But the structure of the cooperative also allows women to come together around a myriad of other issues. One cooperative we visited in Kavre grew so powerful that they took over the local 'forest users group' - the committee of locals who work with the government to manage the forest. When a group of wealthy landowners appropriated the forest for their own use, the women rose up in protest. The leaders of the cooperative were arrested, but they convinced the police of their cause and were immediately released, at which point they marched to the local government office to protest. They filed two lawsuits and eventually prevailed, saving the forest from destruction.
We spent most of our visit at individual members' homes, seeing how their lives have improved due to their involvement with their local coop. My favorite visit was with a woman who doesn't have enough land to grow food. She eventually built up enough loan capital to buy 4 buffalo, and now sells hundreds of liters of buffalo milk per day (we drank some hot milk in tall glasses - delicious!). She makes even more money selling the manure, and has enough left over to run her own mini-biogas plant. This contraption, built with training and technical support from WACN, converts the methane from the manure into fuel, which is piped into her home to power a gas burner. Awesome!
Well, I would love to tell you more stories, but I’ve got to run... I'm off to the airport to catch a flight to Bangladesh to visit with more groups there. I don't know how much Internet access I'll have there so don't be surprised if it's a while until you hear from me.
Namaskar,
Yael
Hi everybody,
Jan (the photographer traveling with me on this trip) and I spent the first day of the year on a FANTASTIC site visit with ASHA Nepal (one of the organizations we fund) in Okarpauwa municipality, a hilly area about 45 minutes NW of Kathmandu. Most people here, like the majority of Nepalis, are subsistence farmers. The cab made a slow climb on a winding road to a small settlement, where we met in a centralized area with members of three women's groups from two villages. Some had walked for two hours to meet with us.
Boy, these are some empowered women, and so affectionate. By the end of our visit they were hugging me, stroking my hair and competing with each other to invite me to their homes ("I will feed you goat's milk," said one. "But I have buffalo milk, come with me!" said another.) One of them hoisted me into the air, told me that I look like her daughter, and said she would like to adopt me. She and I decided by the end that we are relatives and walked with our arms around each other.
These women are clear about what they want for themselves and their community, and how the savings and credit groups are a means to get there. They exuded total ownership over the process, even though they were not organized before the professionals from ASHA Nepal showed up here just three years ago. I have no doubt in my mind that they will continue long after the community development professionals are gone. In fact, the field worker comes less than monthly now, and still they meet without fail on the 29th of every month with their logbooks to turn in their savings quota (a sort of membership fee) of 50 Rupees (75 cents).
They greeted us sitting in a circle on mats in the mud-baked patio of a woman's home. Sitting cross-legged, we bowed in the traditional greeting and introduced ourselves, requesting their permission to take photographs to show back in the United States. The women reservedly waggled their heads in agreement. Little did I know that there were some major camera hams amongst the group. One woman kept interrupting to come up with creative ways to pose photos. She brought out her logbook and savings quota and asked the treasurer to pretend they were having their monthly savings meeting just for the camera. She later posed with her seeds and then hugging her goats. Later as we walked down the road, the women brainstormed excitedly about other shots we might want. They took us to the stream to pose washing their vegetables for market, and then showed us their best crops.
The women went on at length about the improvements to their crop yields they have achieved with sustainable agriculture training provided by ASHA, and the links to the market they have made as a group. They can sell collectively in bulk more effectively than trying to sell the 5 or 10 pounds each one produces separately. And now, for the first time, a vendor comes up the road every week to collect the crops, where before they would have to trek to the city to sell at the market.
They bubbled with enthusiasm about their yearly vegetable exhibition, in which a jury of 5 peers decides which woman grows the best crops. In addition to the admiration of her neighbors, the winner gets a watering can and a weeding trowel. The women call upon her for advice on how to improve their yields. They said that this competition has motivated them to work hard and implement everything they have learned, and that the results have been very marked from one year to the next. Some of them also went on an 'exposure visit' to another municipality where women have implemented a more intensive permaculture program, and they have adopted what they learned there. For example, they plant marigolds near their vegetables, as these flowers protect the crops from pests.
Some of the women brought out their seeds and showed me how they have learned to protect them from moths in jars lined with local herbs and ash, whereas before they hung them in handkerchiefs which would get eaten through. Through more effective seed saving, they keep funds previously used to travel to the city and buy seeds at market. Similarly, they told me how they used to buy insecticides, even though they couldn't read the directions on the bottles. Now they know how to use herbal preparations to fight common pests, and they are happy that their children eat pesticide-free.
One teenage girl read us a poem she composed in honor of our visit, chanting it with another woman. The poem was an elegy to the nutritious vegetables they now can grow that help them stay strong and work together. It seems we aren't the only ones who value organic food.
So what about that savings quota? They told me with great pride that their current loan funds had reached $500 - $1000 per group. This is entirely from their own earnings, so they owe no institution or moneylender. They use the fund to take out three-month loans to buy a goat, or pay school fees, or lease land. They charge 18 - 24% APR (they set the rate themselves, which they say is far below the moneylender rate but enough to grow their fund) and repay their loan as a lump sum in three months with their earnings. When I asked they said it hasn't been hard for them to both collect their savings quota and pay back their loans. They have learned to plan ahead, but if they fall short one month they might go work for a few hours as a wage laborer, or borrow the amount from a friend or two.
The women see the group fund not only as a means to improve their family income and standard of living, but also as a means to contribute to their community. One group (they call themselves the Jalukini group after a local variety of yams) dances together in peoples' homes during the festivals and asks for a small donation towards their group. With the funds collected and a portion of their savings, they have donated money this year towards building a secondary school and founding a temple to the Hindu god Shiva. Now that's grassroots fundraising!
Another group (the "Kurilo" or Asparagus group) has set aside a fund for emergencies that might arise amongst themselves or the neighbors. This same group has spent the interest the fund has grown to begin construction on a vegetable collection stall near the road for all the women in the community to be able to store their harvest at nightfall. Currently they descend the steep hillsides starting at 1am to meet the purchaser who comes in his pickup truck at 2 or 3 in the morning.
With support from ASHA professionals, the women went to the municipal office for the first time to present a proposal handwritten on their official Kurilo letterhead requesting support for the construction of the stall, which will double as their group meeting space and area to receive visitors. The municipality has pledged 10,000 Rupees (about US$150) towards the construction. Next week the group leader will go to the municipal office by herself to ensure that they carry through on their pledge.
Similarly, the group presented me and the ASHA board chair with an official proposal carefully written on letterhead, requesting support not only for construction of the market stall but also for literacy and math classes, and ongoing agriculture training. They made it clear that they do not expect us outsiders to provide major charity, but instead appreciate anything we can provide in addition to what they will already do for themselves.
With the leadership skills they have learned, some of the women have joined the community water committee, previously only open to men. The committee raises funds to bring potable water tanks to the area, and advocates with the municipality about their water needs.
They then showed us the 'tin trunk library' provided by ASHA Nepal, which is literally an aluminum suitcase full of training manuals on health, gender issues, agriculture and other relevant issues and the lending logbook showing which woman borrowed which booklet (1/3 to 1/2 of the women in each group have been to primary school).
I encouraged the women to ask me any question, even things that are personal, as I know it isn't every day that a foreigner shows up in their community. They asked me what I do. As I was about to explain my role at IDEX, one of the ASHA members gently suggested that instead I tell them what my daily routine is like as a woman, and they could share the same with me. Boy, it was humbling! 4am rise, go to fetch water from 2 hours up the hill (in dry season), clean, wash clothes, prepare breakfast, feed animals and then the workday in the field starts (when I say field, you should picture a slope on a mountain at about a 45 degree angle. These women must have serious thigh muscles, not to mention deltoids from the enormous loads of firewood they carry on their backs). In the evening they collect firewood and fodder for their animals before preparing dinner.
Incidentally, here as in most of Nepal the forests are collectively managed, a model of sustainable resource management that has reduced deforestation and is seen as a model in other parts of the world. Oy, I wish I had asked them about that! But I was already overwhelmed with just making sure I got the full story about their work in the group.
When they learned I have a young son, the women asked me if I nurse him, and looked happy to hear that I do. When I told them I had weaned him just weeks ago in anticipation of this trip, they looked at me sympathetically and said it must have been hard for me. They could clearly sense that I miss my little guy. Until now they had maintained a polite distance, but as we got up to take a group photo they surrounded me with hugs and warm strokes on my belly, asking me to stay the night. I wish I could have!
Tomorrow we get picked up at 7am to visit two women's cooperatives in the hills of Kavre district with Women's Awareness Center Nepal. So it's off to bed for me...
Wishing everyone a great start to the year!
Yael Hi all!
Here is my entry from the night we arrived, December 30. This one gives a quick overview of the political context of our visit, and the kind hospitality of our first host.
I have arrived here at a fascinating moment in Nepali history. Less than one week ago, Parliament agreed to completely abolish the monarchy in four short months, relegating the once-powerful King Gyanendra to ordinary citizen status and transforming the last Hindu kingdom on earth into a constitutional republic. From what I gather, this same king was until recently an autocratic head of state who wielded control over the Royal Army and used it to repress social movements in the name of combating terrorism. Last year as part of the peace process he was stripped of most of his powers. This was in part a concession to the powerful Maoist insurgency, but also a political response by Parliament to the overwhelming rejection of King Gyanendra by the general public, who had mistrusted him ever since the prior King, King Birendra, was killed by the Crown Prince Dipendra in the Palace Massacre murder-suicide, which vaulted him to power in 2001. Now, Gyanendra will be dethroned for good and his family's divinely granted powers abandoned forever.
This news has renewed hope for an end to the 10-year civil war as the Maoists have tentatively pledged to rejoin the government. My impression is that it also means a newfound feeling of openness, as people are less scared of the soon-to-be ex-Royal Army and perhaps the soon-to-be ex-armed insurgency. I had been warned by others who visited recently not to ask any direct questions about the Maoists and not to expect any direct answers. So I was planning to keep my mouth shut.
Yet at least one community development professional we met just after we arrived expressed his sympathies for the armed movement, quite loudly and without prompting, in the public space of our hotel lobby. He said that thanks to the Maoists, rural and indigenous people have become much more active and vocal in demanding change, and this has sped up progress for human rights in ways never before seen in this country. The Maoists, in his view, helped the people see the King for the wealthy autocrat that he is, bringing him down from his divine, oppressive, pedestal. It is thanks to them, he told us, that minority groups such as the Indian-identified Madhesis, ethnic Tibetans and so-called 'low-caste' groups have also begun agitating for their rights, having been denied citizenship for centuries.
I have a hunch that some of the other people we are scheduled to meet feel much differently about the insurgency, including the bombings and summary executions that I understand have been very much part and parcel of the Maoist strategy. I wonder if they will feel as safe to share their views in this still-shaky moment of ceasefire.
After that informal chat in the lobby, we were off to our first encounter with Nepal -- or at least one prominent citizen of Nepal. We had been invited to dinner at the home of Rita Thapa, a renowned women's rights activist. Most recently, she is the founder of Voice of the Citizen, a group dedicated to conflict transformation and advocating for the rights of internal refugees and widows of the violent conflict.
As darkness fell, we embarked on a taxi ride through the narrow roads jam-packed with bicycle rickshaws painted in riot of colors, VW Combis crammed full of women in silk saris, buses, cars, diesel trucks decorated in many hues and belching noxious fumes, motorbikes (a few driven by young cosmopolitan women wearing tight jeans and high heels) and brave pedestrians seemingly narrowly escaping death. We veered onto a main highway past the Royal Palace -- where the 'tiger sits trapped in his gilded cage,' according to our friend in the lobby, and into a massive traffic jam. The cab driver explained that this was due to Losar, the Buddhist New Year also know as Lhochaar in Nepal and celebrated by one ethnic group, the Gurung people. As of last week Losar has become one of five new national holidays as part of a nominal effort by the government to recognize the validity of the minority and indigenous cultures that make up something like 1/3 of the population.
As we left the main road the city was enveloped in darkness. Arriving at our destination, we removed our shoes. Rita ushered us into her beautiful two-story home by candlelight as she explained that her area was currently undergoing 'load-sharing.' The government has implemented a policy in which each sector of the city is plunged into blackout from 5 to 8 pm for a few days each month. This is related to a nation-wide energy shortage that has lasted over a year, due to causes unknown. According to the Nepali Times, some people suspect powerful businessmen of deliberately withholding fuel to drive up prices.
Over an appetizer of carrot-cinnamon soup and greens freshly picked from her garden, Rita shared how as a young widow she left a career at the UN convinced that it was time for women in Nepal of all castes and economic means to find ways to support their own initiatives. Her efforts led to the founding of TEWA, the Nepali Women's Fund, which raises funds locally by bringing together groups of middle-aged homemakers to raise funds through walk-a-thons, raffles and other grassroots means. With these funds it supports women's empowerment initiatives all over the country.
Rita eventually turned TEWA over to a new generation of leaders. Her plan had been to study abroad, but then the Palace Massacre occurred and the conflict escalated. Hundreds of people were dying daily and widows and orphans were crowding into Kathmandu with nowhere to go.
She interrupted her narrative to check the rice on the stove. I admired the wood-carvings and paintings of the Buddha decorating the spacious living room and warmed my hands by the small space heater which came on as the lights returned. We padded in our stockings to the dining table as she and her colleague Vickram told us about their latest effort, Voice of the Citizen. For six years they have worked with displaced youth and widows to provide psychological and social support while holding peace vigils and advocating for an end to the violent conflict.
Rita projects the passion of a committed activist and the kindness and warmth of someone who feels comfortable interacting with people of all walks of life. I later was told that she is the daughter of a former Prime Minister of Nepal, one of many who have founded NGOs (non-governmental development or human rights organizations) in the last 15 years. Though she possesses a poise that fits her social station, I detected no snobbery. She spoke quietly about the emotional strain of the war and the toll it on her personally as it has the rest of the country. With a faraway look in her eye, she told us that she is grateful for the solace of Buddhism and especially the meditative practice of cooking.
Perhaps after two days of airplane peanuts my taste buds were feeling neglected, but the food was indeed exquisite. Small bowls were laid in front of us with a Nepali feast similar to - but much better than - the North Indian food I've eaten in Berkeley. A light chicken curry, creamy cheese curds in spinach (equivalent to Indian palak paneer), rice with fragrant black lentil dahl, and a pickled local fruit that tasted like tamarind on steroids. Later we were treated to Rita's homemade yogurt spiced with cardamom, pepper and chunks of fresh strawberries. Having had the real McCoy, I may not be able to enjoy those Trader Joe's microwaveable packets of 'authentic South Asian cuisine' ever again.
Feeling restored, we gave Rita our sincere thanks and took a cab to our hotel to rest in preparations for the busy day ahead.