Women - The world’s greatest untapped resource!?

The subject of this blog entry is simply ‘Women’ as it has been something fairly high on my work and personal agenda for the past few months, this whole issue has been mulling over in my mind and is something I continue to feel challenged, passionate and frustrated about.

Those who know me well will know that I am not a feminist by nature…in fact I think I have even been known to make comments which have enraged some slightly more feminist friends in the past!! But the plight of women here in Africa and indeed in all developing countries has come to be an issue which I am excited about and am trying to stay optimistic!!

VSO Ghana has currently been undertaking a gender audit to see how it includes women in its programmes and to what extent women are being empowered and allowed to develop, I have played a part in this audit and worked with some amazingly inspiring women who are fighting hard for this corner. This combined with much of my work being focused around helping disabled women get involved and set up their own businesses has really contributed to my interest in this area.

I have had the opportunity to see first hand how hard the average African woman works, no matter what level of society they are living in the woman is the power house of the family, she plays the role of mother, nurse, business woman, wife, cleaner, washer woman, cook, spiritual advisor and mediator to name just a few. Research has shown me that even in the most liberal of families, where the women is holding down a serious business job (perhaps even more demanding than her husbands) she is expected to come home from work and start preparing a home made supper with fresh ingredients while her husband rests. I have learnt that women are afraid of getting a ‘top job’ as it will make them unattractive to potential husbands who do not want a woman who will earn anything like what they can earn. I have learnt that a man wants to marry a woman younger than him so she will not challenge him, in fact a good friend of mine who is a journalist here from Cameroon was so shocked when I told him my parents were the same age he couldn’t stop laughing!

I have also learnt that attitudes are deep rooted, a research consultant presented some fairly alarming information about the lack of women in government here in Ghana suggested reasons such as women not voting for other women because they have been told women are incapable of leading, that a woman without a husband will never get voted in because she is unmarried there is something wrong with her and if a woman does have a husband she will bring disgrace on him if she is elected as she will be seen as the stronger party. What was perhaps more alarming than these research findings was the very man presenting the research with a PHD from the USA told us how he felt that women were not capable of dealing with the ‘mudslinging’ involved in politics!!!

You only have to look out of your window here in Africa and see a woman with a baby on her back selling oranges to know the ultimate working mother, these women work so hard. Moreover micro finance organizations in the developing world give over 80% of their services to women as it has been proved that women are far more trustworthy and industrious in making small businesses work than men.

On a recent trip to the north I went with my housemate to a ‘witches camp’, we travelled for hours to get to this remote place in a small village where women who are said to be ‘witches’ by their communities come to live, away from persecution. Before visiting the camp I read a number of reports, some very positive, some pretty horrific about this place, one report said that the women were prisoners here, another said that is was a sanctuary where these previously persecuted women could come and live in relative peace. A woman can be accused of being a witch because she has given birth to a disabled child or because her husband’s second wife is not getting pregnant…it seemed to me that none of these so called ‘witches’ were actually practicing witch craft, just another way men are oppressing women. Before I went I was told that the church had now got involved with this project and women were learning various skills such as soap making to help them earn a little money, unfortunately when we went it seemed this help had somehow finished… come on church don’t leave a job half finished!

Before we were allowed to see the camp we had to greet the chief and present him with kola nuts as is the tradition here, the chief could not speak English so we used a local girl (whom we had met whilst having lunch earlier) to translate. We entered to find a room full of men sat on the floor and as 3 women before them it was fairly intimidating, we were given chairs to sit on and asked what our business was there, after a few minutes of my over enthusiastic flattery we were allowed to enter as long as we were accompanied by the elders. So off we went to meet the women and see how they live. The was one of those slightly uncomfortable experiences for many reasons, most notably the presence of the elders (many of whom were drunk) who kept telling us not to ask the women questions and rather annoyingly the chief’s son who kept making a pass at our 16 year old interpreter who was clearly distressed. The women seemed happy enough in the camp and greeted us with smiles full of joy, but I couldn’t help feeling that these men who ‘allowed’ them to be there were complete creeps…it was either a business opportunity to get cheap labour in the form of persecuted women or goodness knows what but we both came away feeling uncomfortable. Before we left we made sure that we told our 16 year old female interpreter to stay well away from those men and to tell her mother!

So I conclude that women might possibly be the ‘The world’s greatest untapped resource’, if more women can be educated and empowered to get formal jobs outside of petty trading the economy will develop, if more women can get involved in politics then they (given their proven honesty with loans) may help Africa with it’s deep rooted corruption, if more men can be educated about women as equal citizens then the all too common horror stories you hear about domestic violence and sexual harassment will be lessened .

So what can we practically do….that one I’m still trying to figure out…but I want to help I really do…but like all things the starting place is our own hearts, we must check our own actions and opinions to make sure we are practicing what we preach, probably one of the biggest lessons I have learnt so far in Ghana, that our thoughts and actions in the ‘small small’ things are vitally important in the bigger picture.

April the month of celebrations!

For me the month of April has always filled with great excitement and joy, I have many fond memories of my childhood In April, seeing flowers budding up from the ground, hearing the birds start singing in the morning, smelling the distinct smell of hot cross buns and mown grass, walking home from church carrying palm crosses on Palm Sunday, making chocolate crispy cakes with mini eggs and of course eating Easter eggs!!

It is hardly surprising that April is one of my favorite months of the year given the fact it contains not only the celebration of Easter but also my birthday! This year I turned 25 in Ghana. Being overseas on my birthday is not an unusual experience for me; in fact I think I can remember more birthdays in foreign places than I can in the UK but being away from friends and family on ‘the big day’ was a new one for me, it is fair to say that thanks to so many people who sent birthday wishes, gifts, money and cards I felt truly loved and had a great day (thank you everyone!). My friends here in Ghana also made it one to remember!!

The day started with my new housemate preparing a lovely surprise birthday breakfast before I headed off the Saloon for a little birthday treat of highlights, hair cut and a facial. It has taken me 6 months to find a saloon in Ghana which I trusted to dye my hair and I settled on a lady in my neighborhood who did a fantastic job. I was slightly worried when she looked at my skin and asked me ‘Do you take plenty Mango’ (Plenty is used here in day to day language to mean ‘a lot’ or ‘many’, for instance you might say ‘That man has plenty money’ or ‘Please add plenty pepper to my food’. The opposite of plenty being ‘small’ or if you want to convey a very little amount you may say ‘small small’, for example my response to the mango question was ‘small small’. The word take is also used more often that not to mean ‘eat’). I could not for the life of me understand why she was asking me if I ate a lot of mango, I guess I eat around once a week or something…she said I needed to ‘take’ more cucumber and coconut…oookkk I thought to myself…where can I buy cucumber!! ??

The evening was spent with some other VSO friends eating supper at our apartment before heading on to a party of a friend of mine who works for US Embassy…most of us VSO’s had not seen a free bar for a pretty long time, needless to say a fair amount of cocktails were consumed before heading on to my favorite nightclub in Accra for some dancing. We made our way home at around 5am…a great effort for some of my friends who are in their 40’s!!

Easter was spent in the Upper West region of Ghana with a great group of girls of all ages and nationalities. After a VSO conference in the north 6 of us headed to a place on the boarder of Burkina Faso to canoe down a river and watch hippos from the boats. Getting there was pretty much the most hairy bus journey of my life, 7hrs down dirt tracks in un road worthy vehicles needs no embellishment, use your imagination…it was shocking! We slept in a tree in the forest and took our own picnic supper and breakfast. Easter Sunday was spent in the village of Nadowli at an Irish friend’s place who is really living and working in a remote area as a teacher. We attended church on Easter Sunday, it was all in the local language of Dagaree but we felt the sense of celebration during the music and dances. It was great fun to dance with the children who were delighted to see us. No Easter Sunday lunch of spring roast lamb for me this year but a meal of Fufu and light soup washed down with Pito (local brew) at a local’s house was a real joy! (The highlight being asked to hold the new born baby whilst the mother prepared food!)

In other more practical news there has been a number of likes and dislikes this month summarized as follows!

Likes
• Working on a number of projects to develop the relationship between USAID and Ghana National Association of the Deaf
• Holding a successful meeting of deaf women in business and reaching a number of important decisions!
• Attending my first piece of performance art in Ghana
• Receiving a few birthday delights in the post!
Dislikes
• Being without water for 10 days
• Having constant power cuts in the office
• Waking up to find a cockroach walking over by body!
• Being unable to sort out a postal vote for the May 6th elections due to postal service issues!