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Communities and development

by Esnart Hamiyanda | September 24, 2011 at 2:00 AM

Esnart Hamiyanda

Esnart Hamiyanda's Journal

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WEEK THREE ASSIGNMENT
There are quite a number of challenges and barriers to creating change in my community.
• The first being high levels of illiteracy among women, it is usually difficult to foster change when dealing with people with little or no education as their level of understanding is very low.
• Tradition norms, where a woman is regarded as secondary in decision making and should only be confined to the affairs of the kitchen and as such women shun activities that are aimed at improving their lives as they are scared of getting divorced by their husbands.
• Lack of access to resources is rampant in my community which makes it almost impossible for one to improve their livelihood, of course this is due to lack of collateral, as a requirement to get financial assistance from the available financial institutions.
Some of the present solutions in overcoming these challenges are:
• Promoting of girl child education at community level and also introduction of adult literacy to women, this will help in fostering the much needed literacy.
• In as much as we appreciate and treasure our traditions, today’s world needs only positive norms and practices ,sensitization is therefore required among women and men, by so doing men will appreciate and embrace the need for women to be participating in developmental activities in their communities.
• In the long run women will be able to accumulate and acquire some properties that they could then use as collateral to get financial assistance from available micro lenders to further grow their small enterprises.
The use of Pulsewire and other online communities will definitely help in overcoming some of the challenges in my community. The resource exchange is a useful tool to connect to pulsewire members who could be in a position to finding solutions to the highlighted challenges.
I am going to introduce a lot of women to become members of pulsewire community, this will help them get trainings and get the much needed literacy through getting connected to members or sites that offer free trainings or other forms of assistance. They could also make contributions according to what they have be it advice, market connections and many more.
By sharing and learning other people’s traditions and norms using the platform, it will be easy for one to pick and put into practice that which is only positive to one’s life but able to fit into their community.
Women will get exposure through interacting with members of the platform, which in the long run will help improve and consolidate their voice and participate effectively to the betterment of their community.

Comments

Dear Esnart:

I was fascinated to see, in your week 1 post, that you also run a small business that provides loans for small women entrepreneurs which allows them to earn money so they can send their children to school. I would be very happy to learn more about how you came to do this, and what you have learned from it about supporting women. Do some strategies work better than others for the women? What is the key to achievement for them?
I think you have concisely set out the problems faced by women in so many societies. The good news is that a lot more attention is being paid to some of these issues globally. This week, for example, the Elders (a group of retired world leaders) focused the UN's attention on the problems of early marriage of girls. A number of organizations and campaigns have been created to support the education and empowerment of girls.
Your personal story seems like a wonderful example of what happens when girls are empowered. You have overcome difficult circumstances, taken advantage of opportunities when they have come your way, and now help other women by offering them opportunities. Your story can really inspire other women, to see what they can do.
It would be great if you could share some of the stories of those other women you are helping, via an online community like WorldPulse. It is so powerful when women are able to earn money to send their children to school.
I met a number of women in eastern DRC earlier this year who were working hard and running businesses, or had joined groups so they could work together, with the goal of making sure their children got an education. One of the benefits of joining such groups, for economic development, was that the community realized that many women were not literate or able to write numbers, and so they created literacy programs to support them. (In one community, they built an outdoor classroom. An economic program thus led to a literacy program.
So often it seems to me that while the things you identify are individual problems, the solutions often can be integrated ones.
Kindest regards,
Rosemary

Dear Rosemary

Thank you for having responded to my post.Well like i indicated in my post, its the background i found myself in that prompted me to try and do something that could help mostly poor women in my community.I started by doing a small business of trading so as to raise money for my college education, whilst at college i continued trading through a relative who was in charge until i completed my study, I never got a job immediately and decided to take over the running of the trading business. As you may be aware, business with a small capital is quite difficult especially when you are competing with well established multinational businesses, so the profit margin were not good enough so i began job hunting which fortunately i got as an admin officer in a private company. I immediately decided to pump my first salary into my earlier business. Most of my customer were poor women who at some point would come and ask to buy goods on credit and repayments were difficult. Then the thought of empowering women struck my mind but how was i to do it? I tried to approach some existing organisations for assistance but it was not forth coming as their field of operations were different from my request. I went back to these women and asked them what they really lacked and would need to be done to them, 75% of the them mentioned the issue of lack of financial assistance to enable them engage in some small business, i bought into the idea and promised these women that their wish would be looked into. Now the issue of money to start with came into play, negative thoughts ofcourse i had, should i chicken out, if not will this succeed, knowing myself very well i decided to go on. My very salary was what i started with, from then on my fulfilment journey started. Though some women have been empowered and are being empowered, the need list keeps growing but with the right attitude i know that one day a lot of women will be empowered. I believe i have been able to achieve this because of personal commitment and embracing all types of women without segregating on one's background.

Dear Esnart:

Thank you for sharing that story. Your determination to help these women is so wonderful - to be so committed that you would even use your own salary to support them is a wonderful thing. I commend your generosity and commitment. This is how change happens.

I remember reading about how Muhammad Yunus started Grameen bank. He came back from the US after Bangladesh became independent and he was teaching at the local university, and teaching about economic development on a large scale. Then he began investigating the situation in the village nearest the university and that is where he discovered that so many people running small businesses were indebted to the local money lender. The money lender loaned them the money to buy materials and required them to sell the finished products to him, so they never got out of debt. Yunus tried to get the local banks to support these small traders but they weren't interested, as they said the small traders had no collateral and couldn't read and write. So he paid a comparatively small amount of money from his own pocket, something like $27 US, to get all these people out of debt to the moneylender, and then they were able to support their families. Eventually he gave up on trying to get the banks to support these small businesswomen and that is when he started the Grameen Bank - and the rest, as they say, is history.

So you are doing, it seems to me, the same thing that Muhammad Yunus did, being faithful in small things. And who knows where it will lead?

Best regards,
Rosemary

Dear Rosemary

Thank you for sharing that story from Bangladesh with me, it really feels great and satifying to work for people and put a smile on their faces. I salute Muhammad Yunus for his effort i can imagine how relieved that community felt by that act.

Regards,

Esnart