Women's Work

One of my projects is the Women’s Centre. I am privileged to work with some amazing women on this project and am pretty much in awe of them. Not only do the three staff members work full time at the Women’s Centre, they are also still responsible for taking care of their children, cooking, washing, and running their houses. They each have three or four children, one each who is young enough that they come to the centre with their mothers each day. One of the women is pregnant and she still walks an hour to work each day. They’re passionate about empowering women in Meheba and take their jobs very seriously. These women kick ass.

One of the things the Women’s Centre does is hold outreach classes in different parts of the camp that run six to eight weeks and teach women how to hand sew and knit, along with teaching on SGBV, nutrition and childcare, and reproductive health. The workshop teaches women skills to use at home or to start small businesses to earn their own money. The sewing and knitting outreach finished in October and a graduation celebration was held for the thirty women who finished the course. This was a party. The women sang songs and performed dramas they worked on during the outreach that taught about topics such as SGBV and HIV/AIDS. They showcased the items they had made during the workshop and it was amazing to see all of these beautiful hand sewn baby dresses, school uniforms, adorable knitted baby hats, sweaters and pants. To think that a couple of months earlier these women had no idea how to make these, and to look at their perfect creations that they would surely use or at least be able to sell to make some money for their families, it nearly brought me to tears. Their excitement was contagious.

The Women’s Centre also runs saving circles. Many of these saving circles start as a result of the sewing and knitting outreaches where women want to continue meeting together. A saving circle is a group of ten to twenty women who meet weekly for one year to save a fixed amount of their own money. The money saved is loaned out to the members of the group and repaid with interest. The saving circles provide a safe place for women to keep money outside of the home and allow women to have control over money and lessen their dependence on men. This can begin to address gender inequality issues at the household level. Saving circles also provide access to loans when emergencies arise and give women access to loans for use in business. As well, perhaps one of the most crucial aspects of the groups is that saving circles serve as a kind of support group where women share ideas and encourage each other in business and in life.

One of the saving circles recently finished their year of saving and divided the money. The women in this saving circle ranged from age 16 to 45 and had varying levels of participation. When they split the money, many of the women took their savings (with interest) and purchased female goats or chickens to begin raising and selling as a small business. Others bought fertilizer and seed to begin a farm, and still others paid school fees for their children that they wouldn’t have been able to without saving. The group was so pleased with the results of the saving circle that many of them want to reform the group to continue saving for another year.

I love seeing women take control of their own future. I love seeing women learning skills that can generate income for themselves and their children. I love seeing women saving money, having access to loans, and starting small businesses. I love seeing practical ways that women can step towards independence and equality, ways that give women a choice besides marriage as a survival tool. We’re working on registering a new intake of women for the next knitting and sewing class, as well as forming new saving circles. The staff at the women’s centre are excited to reach more women and have devised a strategy to reach out to new arrivals in Meheba. I can’t wait for the next graduation!