As the world celebrates International Women's Day (March 8), global humanitarian agency Church World Service is paying tribute to women worldwide and to one group of women in particular who are successfully tacking local food insecurity and poverty in Haiti, a nation plagued by ongoing political instability, the worst poverty in the western hemisphere, economic insecurity, and rising prices that led to food riots last year.
As the world celebrates International Women's Day (March 8), global humanitarian agency Church World Service is paying tribute to women worldwide and to one group of women in particular who are successfully tacking local food insecurity and poverty in Haiti, a nation plagued by ongoing political instability, the worst poverty in the western hemisphere, economic insecurity, and rising prices that led to food riots last year.
For Church World Service, empowering women is as much an objective as it is an international development mantra.
In Haiti's Nord-Oueste (Northwest) and Artibonite regions hundreds of women from 14 extremely poor communities are part of a network of rural cooperatives that are working together to create economic security and sustainable food sources for their families. The effort is supported by Church World Service and operated by CWS Haitian partner Christian Center for Integrated Development (Sant Kretyen Pou Developman Entegre-SKDE).
Despite some losses experienced in last year's brutal hurricane damage across Haiti, these farming cooperatives are steadily producing and flourishing.
The cooperatives are made up of neighbors who pool their resources in a community "bank" through which members save, borrow, store grain, share land and animals, learn to manage their land and money-and repay their micro-loans.
Together, on land they own or share with others in the co-op, members grow some, eat some, and sell some.
The co-op communities have progressed from individual income generating ventures at which some people barely made enough to send their children to school, to places where people can get co-op loans to expand homegrown businesses to the point that they generate adequate income to maintain households.
With the combined support of Church World Service, SKDE and the Foods Resource Bank, 14 such cooperatives are thriving in rural Haiti.
There are some men in the cooperatives but it is the women--traditionally undervalued, undereducated, and underemployed--who are serving as significant contributors to and benefactors of these community development initiatives.
Cooperative member Elizia Saintelus' story is typical of the experience of women who have become part of the community development project:
"I sell salt. I used to sell from a little basket I carried on my head, so I didn't make much. I borrowed 1,500 goudes ($38 US) from the cooperative, and together with money I inherited from some land I was able to buy a donkey. With the donkey I was able to increase my commerce. I have six children, and before only four were in school but with the increased commerce I was able to put all six in school."
Her participation in the cooperative improved the possibilities for Saintelus' family, but it did not shield her from a natural disaster that could have plunged them back into intractable poverty. Their donkey perished in a storm, Saintelus told Hillary Prag, who interviewed women of the cooperatives for Church World Service.
"So now, two of my children can't go to school again. I'll buy another donkey when I can, but it's hard. The cooperative can't lend more than 1,500 goudes, which isn't enough to buy a donkey. If we had more money to make bigger loans it would be better."
'Not just about another free donkey'
"This isn't just about giving out another free donkey," says CWS Coordinator for Latin America Martin Coria. "Their co-op will have more money as members earn enough to increase their contributions, thereby increasing the amount of money available for lending to each other," he says.
That Saintelus has to wait for another loan from her co-op is a significant shift away from a humanitarian model in which she might simply be given another donkey and, unintentionally, be taught dependency rather than self reliance.
Instead, she and the other co-op members will continue contributing money, animals, grains and other resources, as they are able. They'll keep on learning to manage their land and the money they earn from trade. They'll continue applying what they learn and then training people in other communities to form their own co-ops.
Most important, though, the women of these cooperatives will continue to build their communities and empower themselves, in their own time, in their own way, until eventually they will be able to sustain themselves, without perpetual assistance from outsiders.
How to Help: Contributions to support this CWS work can be made online, by calling 800-297-1516, or by mail to Church World Service, 28606 Phillips Street, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515.
Media Contacts:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676 lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 24/7, 781-925-1526 jdragin@gis.net