Posts Tagged ‘indigenous women’
IDEX staff and Ñepi Behña staff with women cooperative members in Hidalgo, Mexico.
Paula Vlamings, an IDEX Board Member, recently returned from a memorable and inspiring partner visit with the women of Ñepi Behña (Women of Dignity), one of IDEX’s partners that supports several women’s cooperatives in the area of Hildalgo, north of Mexico City.
Along with Katherine, IDEX’s Program Manager of Grassroots Alliances and several staff members of Ñepi Behña, we piled into a pickup van and headed out from Mexico City for a 2-hour drive to the region of Valle de Mezquital. Read the rest of this entry »
The following was written by Katherine Zavala, Program Manager of Grassroots Alliances, after her recent site visit to Mexico.
I’ve just returned from Hidalgo, Mexico and I’m reflecting on my visit with the incredible indigenous women I met through IDEX partner Ñepi Behña.
Ñepi Behña (“Women with Dignity” in the indigenous otomi language) was founded to support indigenous women who live in the Valle de Mezquital area of Hidalgo. Read the rest of this entry »
May
27Indigenous Communities on Frontlines of Climate Change Share Learnings at Conference
2011
Posted by IDEX
IDEX Executive Director Vini Bhansali reports from the 10th Annual Conference of the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) currently wrapping up in Haudenosaunee territory in upstate New York. IFIP creates a bridge where the philanthropic and Indigenous worlds meet to understand and collaborate with each other. Vini is there with Heera Lal Sharma from IDEX Partner Sahyog Sansthan in India.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, Tuesday, March 8, many IDEX partners planned and participated in local events.
One partner AFEDES, in Guatemala, led a press conference at the Cultural Center in Antigua with other women’s groups to demand the government support initiatives for women’s development and safety under constitutional law. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec
18Migration, Climate Change, and Action: A Conversation with IDEX Partner Ñepi Behña on International Migrants Day
2010
Posted by IDEX
In honor of International Migrants Day , we present to you an eye-opening conversation between IDEX’s Katherine Zavala and Adriana Welsh, Program Coordinator of Ñepi Behña , an IDEX partner based in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico which has been facing increasing levels of migration in recent years. Ñepi Behña works with over 650 indigenous women promoting gender equity and empowers women to build strong livelihoods. Their conversation is below.
A home in Hidalgo, Mexico of women involved in Nepi Behna
How do you see migration affecting the communities that Ñepi Behña works in?
Although migration has long been a strategy for reproduction and survival for rural communities, the migration patterns have been changing.
Migration has changed from something domestic and temporary – to nearby urban cities such as Mexico City or Guadalajara, for example. Now you see more migration to the United States for long periods of time and, on occasions, without return.
Have you been seeing any connections between climate change and increased levels of migration?
The effect of climate change on food production is very serious. We work in two regions of Hidalgo- the Valle region and the Sierra region.
In the Valle region, the rains arrived late in the season and there have also been freezes that came early that destroyed land and crops. This has serious consequences in the supply of staple foods like maize and beans, and crops from family gardens. Now we are looking into recovering those family gardens and get more seeds.
In the Sierra region, the hurricane season has caused tropical rains and landslides that have closed roads and isolated communities, leaving many of them without food or basic services. Moreover, the rains were in abundance with strong winds that also affected
cultivation.
And so, due in part to the lack of food and income to survive, both men and women have been migrating to look for employment. Without the right conditions for agricultural production, many families look to migration as a strategy for survival.
In this particular region in Hidalgo, the increase in migration in the last two decades has also been related to the serious abandonment of support and subsidies for agricultural production. Without subsidies and protection of the national market, many small producers are forced to migrate, leaving their land behind.
IDEX Program Officer, Katherine Zavala recently traveled to Mexico on field visits to our grantees there.
Today I traveled 2 hours north of Mexico City to the state of Hidalgo. Hidalgo’s capital is Pachuca. 45 minutes from Pachuca is the municipality Ismiquilpan, where staff from Ñepi Behña introduced me to the indigenous communities of the region called Valle de Mezquital.
Migration is a big problem in this community. As men migrate to cities in search of work, women are the ones that are left with the burden of caring for children, maintaining the house and finding some work to support the family until a remittance arrives.
About 20 years ago, the women in these communities organized a cooperative to sell natural beauty products to The Body Shop. Agave, known locally as maguey, is grown here. The women go through an arduous process to extract the fibers from the agave, which they then knit into bath sponges. Ñepi Behña has been assisting the cooperative by providing leadership development workshops to strengthen the cooperative and ensure its sustainability.
I met with the Cooperative Board who told me there are 250 women members from 5 communities participating in the cooperative. They have organized the cooperative into different committees to improve communication and coordination among themselves. Now they have committees of product quality, packing supervision, informing members of meetings, trainers, sales and problem solving. They have a Board with a President, Secretary and Treasurer that leads the committees.
I than had the great opportunity of being shown through the process of making a sponge, from chopping off a huge agave leave from the plant, to removing the moisture to reveal the fibers, to spinning the fibers into a thread. Seeing the whole process made me realize how time-consuming and labor-intensive it is. 8 big agave leaves are needed to make enough fiber for one bath sponge. And it takes at least 6 hours to have enough fiber ready for making the sponge. Unsurprisingly during my time there everyone was either knitting or manually spinning the fiber into string while talking to me.
Many of these women also save the money they earn with cooperative group savings plans. Women from the cooperative are trained to collect and track money from their peers. The administrator of this program called Las Abejitas (Little Bees) then deposits the money in a bank account. At the end of the year, they hand out savings interests to the women based on how consistently they saved and not by how much they put in. “It’s a way to put more value on the habit of saving even though it can be a minimal amount,” says Luciana, the administrator of Las Abejitas.
It was a great experience to see how these women are empowering and supporting themselves to initiate local economic opportunities. Plus it was fascinating to learn how everyday Body Shop products are made and supporting each other.
When I arrived at the office of FOCA I was surprised not to see their name displayed outside their door. Usually the organizations have some kind of sign to show their names, even if it is just piece of paper. Once inside, Diana, FOCA’s co-founder and director, explained to me that their organization name wasn’t displayed because they didn’t want to have people think they were offering a general service. But because their work belongs to the community, there is always a debate whether to put the name out or not. I’m not surprised as their name, FOCA, stands for Formación y Capacitación (Professional Development and Training) which might make people think it is a general service.
FOCA was established in 1996 focusing on two programs: education and health. FOCA started their education program in one community in the Los Altos region, and offered classes to students because the one professor that community had had, decided to leave suddenly. From teaching the students FOCA went on to teach community members to become teachers so they could build their capacity and offer children education in other communities. After 12 years, FOCA has been able to train teachers in more than 24 municipalities in the region of Los Altos.
FOCA works with community members in all aspects of their programs. With education, FOCA has been working exclusively with autonomous municipalities, teaching literacy classes and a curriculum developed by the communities themselves. FOCA is continually expanding their program as they are planning to train 80 teachers this October on gender issues so they can develop interactive games that talk about gender equity with children from their first grade.
They are also focusing on encouraging their students that graduate from elementary school to continue their studies and register for middle school. This isn’t easy as students finish elementary school at 12 years-old and therefore, are considered old enough to be part of the community and need to help their families. So FOCA has to be constantly talking to the parents and community leaders to demonstrate the necessity of their children continuing their education.
With their health program, FOCA initiated with traditional plants, but over time they saw that a missing component in health issues was sexual and reproductive health, an issue that is related more with women. To address this issue, FOCA has organized training workshops on gender issues and trained 5 indigenous women intensively to become health promoters so that they could train other indigenous women on these issues as well.
In order to have success with training indigenous women on sexual and reproductive health, FOCA realized with experience that they needed the full support of the community leaders. FOCA has focused particularly on the issue of maternal mortality as many community members can relate to this. No one wants their mom to die. Unfortunately there are a high number of mothers who die due to poorly performed abortions that can cause heavy hemorrhaging. These statistics are not documented as these women are not considered part of the census population.
It has been a struggle but FOCA have now been able to get the full support of community leaders to train women in sexual and reproductive health. This was necessary because even though it is crucial that indigenous women know their own rights, it is also important that they still feel they belong to their community. Now with the support of the community leaders, the women being trained aren’t being expelled from the communities. They are still subject to criticism, especially by men, but because FOCA’s training and approach, they are learning to have a voice, while staying part of the community.
Diana does part of the health training, and focuses on information about the Mayan cultures before the Spanish conquest. This is essential as it teaches women that indigenous cultures did not traditionally accept women to be in a subordinate role or to allow men to beat them up, which is unfortunately all too common. Being half indigenous, half mestiza, Diana understands the context of living in a small community where traditions prevail over everything. I can tell she is a great trainer as she has been explaining everything to me at great length. Eventually I needed to raise my hand to excuse myself to the bathroom.
FOCA gives training to health promoters once a month and like CIAM, they plan out all their activities in January. Activities are based on the monitoring and evaluation tasks they carried out throughout the year before. Once a month health promoters come to FOCA’s office for training and they bring with them a report of how many women they have trained, what themes they covered and how successful they were. By constantly training women to train others, FOCA has been able to increase from 2 indigenous health promoters to a network of 120 indigenous women specializing in sexual and reproductive health over the course of 12 years.
“Many people can’t believe all the work that has been accomplished with such a small staff,” Diana commented, “but what I always tell them is that this hasn’t been the work of FOCA, it has been the work of the women and their communities. They are the ones that have carried out this work and have shared their knowledge with other women so that there are more women experts in sexual and reproductive health. This is why the impact is so big.”
Near the market of Santo Domingo I took a colectivo (van) to head towards IDEX’s partner, K’inal Antsetik’s Leadership Center. Both the offices of K’inal and the Mayan weavers cooperative called Jolom Mayaetik are based there.
Getting to K’inal’s offices turned out to be not so easy. The colectivo dropped me of in the middle of the street. “Just cross the piece of land ahead and watch out for the dogs! They like to bite people,” was the last thing I heard the van driver say. I found myself ultimately on Calzada de la Escuela and of course, none of the numbers are in order. A woman that looked out of place was walking nearby, so I thought maybe she would know what I’m looking for. Indeed the European woman showed me the way to K’inal. I knew I was there once I saw the pink building.
The first person I met was Celerina, the President of Jolom Mayetik’s Board. She is in her last year of presidency and is already training young indigenous women to become part of the Board the next year when she leaves.
“What do you want to do after leaving your president’s role?” I asked her.
“I want to study medicine to become a nurse. I want to be able to support women in the communities in issues of health. That has always been my dream.”
“How is it, being president for the cooperative?”
“It has been hard but I have learned so much on the way. At first I told the cooperative that I didn’t want to be the president, but no one really paid attention to me, because the next thing I know I was the president! But now I’m glad because I have the opportunity to learn to speak to people and to travel and get to know other countries. I now can travel to other countries by myself.”
I then met with Micaela, K’inal’s Director and Rosalinda, the Health Program Coordinator. Micaela talked about her ongoing work in supporting Jolom Mayaetik cooperative and how excited she is to start a new program for indigenous young women at K’inal.
K’inal is hosting for the first time 3 young women from the community of Marques de Comillas to stay at K’inal’s Leadership Center to continue their education in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Also, at the end of August, they will be receiving a 17 year-old young woman who will be studying law at a nearby university. Her community will be collectively paying her tuition fees with the commitment of her returning to the community to defend their rights as indigenous people.
Rosalinda gave me the details of the health program at K’inal that started in 2006. By March 2007, Rosalinda had visited 3 times each group of women belonging to Jolom Mayaektik cooperative to create a needs assessment of what health-related issues to cover in the program. At the same time, she’s been accompanying indigenous women to doctor and gynecological appointments to be the translator from Spanish to Tzotzil so that these women can have access to healthcare in the city.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rosalinda just finished her first semester of studying alternative medicine where she plans to get her bachelor’s degree.
“Why did you want to study alternative medicine?” I asked her.
“At first I thought I wanted to study accounting because of my experience at Jolom Mayaetik. [Rosalinda is the former President of Jolom's Board.] Then I thought I wanted to study computer science but how am I going to help women directly with a computer? I chose alternative medicine because it will allow me to have the skills to support directly women in the communities. That was the most important decision maker for me.”
After our conversation, Rosalinda showed me her garden, where she is growing various medicinal plants. She’s still learning but she is hoping that whatever she learns she can pass on to indigenous women in Chiapas.
Kat
