Saturday, May 21, 2011
Africa: MDGs 3, 4 and 5
Women's Stories
Excerpts from some IPS Women development reporting we thought deserved some more eye balls:
From Talia Whyte's look at Somali women entrepreneurs carving a niche in Boston:
Statistically, Somalis have struggled more than nearly any other immigrant group in the United States. The American Community Survey estimated just over 100,000 Somalis lived in the U.S. in 2009, with almost 30,000 living in Minnesota, although other sources suggest 60,000. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income for Somalis is among the lowest, with 51 percent living in poverty. But that could be changing. Jibril's enterprise is not only an example of the evolving multicultural dynamic within the U.S. workplace, but also the role of women. According to Joyce Stanley, head of the Dudley Square Main Streets Program, a city initiative to support business development in the community, there are nine businesses that were started up by African women in the area, many of them in the last four years alone. "In the immigrant community, anyone who comes here to America is motivated to achieve," Stanley said. "Somalis are one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in Boston, but it is simply amazing to see the Somali women take charge."(more)You won't know from watching the trailer, but the PBS excerpt below from Dawn Shapiro's documentary, The Edge of Joy, is unlike lots of development documentaries we've seen. The filmmaker takes the pacing, life drama and narrative style of Discovery channel medical reality shows and updates the old, stale development reporting or documentary format, mainly by making the ensemble cast of Nigerian doctors, midwives and families in a Kano specialist hospital--said to be one of busiest child delivering centers in West Africa--the heroes of the piece. And maybe that's why the piece helps one process the developing world reality of millennium development goals 4 & 5: reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health:
Zukiswa Zimela's IPS piece was on how women’s issues were missing from election manifestos in the just concluded South African local elections and Fidelis Zvomuya wrote on Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi, who after 30 years in the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) left to form the National Freedom Party (NFP), insisting "on the idea that democracy and women’s advancement must be promoted within a political organisation":
''When a woman tries to move on to higher office, she risks losing the advantages of her super- volunteer status at the local level. She becomes perceived as personally ambitious rather than a high- minded, dedicated public servant. You are caught in the bind of your femininity," she explains.KaMagwaza-Msibi has embraced her feminine virtues, edging into the old boys' network, cutting deals in smoked-filled rooms and promoting the economic and social causes affecting women."It’s true, the best man for the job is always a woman. It is women who experience sexual harassment on the job, violence in the home, (and) who are still the primary care givers. If we are going to have a representative government, we have to have women in high office," she says (more)From Sam Olukoya's piece on a woman from Lagos sprawl of Makoko, a loan from a small women's cooperative and lots of dirty charcoal:(Latifat) Agboola got the money from a local savings and loan cooperative. The Gumi cooperative pools money from its members to make loans on which it charges as little as 15 percent interest."The group is made up of small women who are into small-scale business, says Tosun Jimoh, head of the group. "We deal mainly in small loans of between 20,000 naira and 40,000 naira ($270) and members can pay within six months. Members don’t require require any collateral, so long as they can get a guarantor we can trust."Gender analyst Emem Okon, says Agboola's rapid progress is exactly the kind of transformation microcredit can enable in the lives of poor women like Agboola. "Where microcredit is properly managed, it helps to improve the income of poor women, whether they are involved in petty trading or farming it provides the money to acquire the much needed inputs," says Okon, who is the head of the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, a non-governmental organisation based in southeastern city of Port Harcourt. Agboola says her choice of what to invest the loan in was crucial to her success. "Charcoal business is a dirty job and that is why many people are reluctant to do it, but the secret is that it is a very lucrative business if you are determined." It is the right business to get into in Makoko, with its high poverty and dense population. "With the high price of kerosene, many of the residents here are too poor to cook with [other kinds of] stoves, thus charcoal is a very cheap alternative for them," says Agboola. "There is a high demand for charcoal in this neighbourhood, but no one sells it.(more)