Equalogy

Posts Tagged ‘Africa’

Elizabeth Sharpf, founder of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) was featured this week in The Feministing Five and I really wanted to share her story also.

Several years ago while working in Mozambique, she found a connection between inadequate sanitary protection for menstruating girls and women and lost income and education for towns, cities and entire countries,

Through research, she learned that menstruating girls and women lose up to fifty days a year of work or school because they are afraid of leaking through their make shift rags or bark.  Scharpf decided to do something about it and launched SHE, which gives out micro-finance loans and basic health training to local women so that they can manufacture pads from local sustainable materials and sell them at affordable prices.  Selling the pads is a source of income for the women and the girls and women who have access to the pads are less likely to contract infections and are able to participate in public life every day of the month.

Watch a promo video for the project:

While we take the availability of pads and tampons for granted in the United States, the lack of access to sanitary options has many dangers.

From the Huffington Post:

In developing countries, periods continue to be a serious handicap. According to UNICEF, ten percent of school-age African girls miss school because of a lack of access to affordable sanitary products. In Rwanda, it’s much worse. According to on-the-ground research by Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), half the girls are missing school due to menstruation and the main reason given is that sanitary pads are too expensive. For women, 24% miss work–up to 45 days per year–for the same reason. This not only limits girls’ educational and women’s professional achievement, but leads to a significant economic loss for nations. SHE estimates that a lack of affordable sanitary pads reduces GDP by $115 million per year in Rwanda alone.

There are also serious health repercussions of not having pads. In Asia, many women still use rags; less fortunate ones use newspapers, banana leaves, even sand or ash. While rags were common before the pad was invented, the problem in developing countries is that often women don’t have access to clean water to wash them. And the taboo of menstruation means that many women cannot hang their rags to dry in the open. So, instead, they hide them in dark, damp places where no one will find them. As one might imagine, infections are rampant.

Latrice Davis of Women’s News reports that even though there are efforts to get clean, safe drinking water to the women who need it most, it is unlikely any of the programs working toward that goal will have much of an impact.

Here’s the full story:

Improving water quality and access can help lower maternal mortality rates, say advocates. Now a new fellowship program is being launched to explore various solutions to the maternal health problem in the world’s poorest nations.

(WOMENSENEWS)–Knowledge has long been cited as the tool most needed to lower maternal mortality rates, but Global Water, a volunteer organization based in Oxnard, Calif., says what women in developing countries also need to combat this problem is water.

“Not having the proper amount of water on a daily basis puts stress on the body, which affects a woman’s life span,” said Ted Kuepper, the organization’s executive director, in a telephone interview. “It also affects their ability to further their education and break out of poverty.”

To help disrupt this cycle, the New York-based international reproductive health organization EngenderHealth is launching a fellowship program with Ashoka, an organization of social entrepreneurs with headquarters in Arlington, Va., to focus on improving maternal health in the world’s poorest nations. The initiative will concentrate on parts of the world with the highest maternal and child mortality rates, says Tim Thomas, senior advisor of the Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth.

“The rates are highest in Africa and South Asia,” he said in a telephone interview, but added that “we’re not committing to any particular countries at this point.”

That’s because EngenderHealth and Ashoka–who plan to recruit 32 candidates through its Changemakers online competition–are seeking proposals that focus on applicants’ areas of interest. Those selected for the program will spend nine months working on a tangible solution to a specific maternal health challenge, starting in September 2010.

Water Use Soars

Water use has grown at more than twice the rate of the world’s population over the past century, mostly for agricultural purposes, according to the 2009 United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report. This has left 884 million people at risk for–or already facing–a water shortage. The situation poses a huge threat to maternal health, but Thomas said it’s not the only contributing factor.

“There’s a panoply of factors that contribute to maternal mortality–everything from (the drug) misoprostol not being available to treat postpartum hemorrhage to the insufficient distribution of magnesium sulfate for preeclampsia in rural clinics,” he said. “This is where research is needed to coalesce and bring consensus, and that’s one of the jobs of the task force.”

Grace Lusiola, director of the EngenderHealth office in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, works in conjunction with the government on strategies like the One Plan, a federal campaign unveiled in April 2008 to reduce maternal and child deaths. The campaign’s contributions to policy development include providing post-abortion care.

“Unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal death in Tanzania,” Lusiola said in an e-mail interview. “We’re increasing the number of facilities at the community level where women who have had unsafe abortions can go for medical care. Being able to get emergency care locally and not having to travel (long distances) saves lives.”

Water-Based Solutions

Another way to improve maternal health is through building latrines and hand-washing stations. Global Water assembles such facilities for elementary schools in rural areas, working with the Peace Corps to promote good hygiene and halt the spread of waterborne illnesses such as cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis and typhoid fever. On one visit to a village in Guatemala, Kuepper said, volunteers taught children about hygiene–despite lacking the basic tools.

“Those schools didn’t have any water, so they had the students pretend to wash their hands and brush their teeth,” he said. “It was an amazing sight.”

Still, good hygience practices are not common in many countries. A 2009 study published in the journal Health Education Research found that only 29 percent of 802 women surveyed in Kenya washed their hands with soap after using the bathroom, often due to lack of time and energy. (Washing one’s hands with just water is the norm throughout the country.)

“Key motivations for hand washing were disgust, nurture, comfort and affiliation,” wrote lead author Valerie Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Fear of disease generally did not motivate hand washing,” as 43 percent of the women polled felt that diarrhea “is a normal part of growing up.”

Contaminated water is also commonplace in developing countries. The World Health Organization, or WHO, and the United Nations Children’s Fund issued a report in 2004 that found the definition of “safe water” varied from region to region. WHO has issued guidelines for maintaining water quality around the world since 1982, but leaves it up to each country to implement their own standards. Such inconsistency is why Global Water bypasses the government when it comes to installing water treatment systems.

“We’re trying to fill a void that’s been created by the leaders of the developing world themselves,” Kuepper said. “There’s a real lack of concern among these leaders to take care of their own people.”

Slow Progress

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals Report indicates that at the global level maternal mortality rates fell by less than one percent annually between 1990 and 2005–far below the 5.5 percent annual improvement needed to reach the world body’s 2015 target. Of the eight Millennium Development Goals–U.N. benchmarks to reduce poverty and improve health–originally set in 2000, it’s the area that has seen the least amount of progress.

“Women’s health and empowerment is at the heart of all the development goals. I don’t think any of them can be achieved unless we scale up a full range of reproductive health services and policies for women in every part of the world,” Thomas said. “There’s such great momentum around maternal health because the crux of women’s reproductive health and rights is the saving of lives of women who are dying needlessly because of pregnancy or childbirth.”

Improving women’s access to clean water is directly linked to increasing their life expectancy. For example, a 2006 WHO survey found that women in countries such as Tanzania were only expected to live to the age of 51; one of the causes of death was consuming excessive levels of fluoride found in contaminated water. Those who do survive in countries with unsafe water have to deal with side effects like stiff joints.

“The body acclimates to some degree to accommodate the level of contamination in the water,” Kuepper said. But he pointed out that such adaptation only applies to microorganisms like bacteria and viruses, not minerals like fluoride and arsenic. Since water contamination remains an environmental hazard to women and children in the world’s poorest nations, he doesn’t envision the development goals being fulfilled within the next six years.

“I don’t see anything on the horizon to fix the problem. There’s not enough funding efficiently being spent in water-short areas of the world,” he said.

I was browsing the Bitch Magazine blog this afternoon when I stumbled on this woman’s story.  Majka Burhardt is a rock climber.  But she doesn’t use the rock wall at the gym.  So far she has written books about climbing in Ethiopia and Namibia and has contributed to major publications about her climbing.  Not only is she breaking through a field mainly dominated by men, but she concerns herself with also interacting with the local culture.

This is the trailer for her new book, Waypoint Namibia:

Waypoint Namibia Trailer from Majka Burhardt on Vimeo.

Says Burhadt:

I enjoy being able to talk about climbing and life. The two go together for me. I’m always interested in how this works in my life and in the lives of others. In some ways I think this makes me different. Maybe this is because I am a woman, maybe it’s because I am a writer. I think people identify with my work because it shows the human side of climbing— what is fallible, what is emotional, what is humorous. I write a great deal about how climbing interacts with the every day part of life. I’m lucky that I’ve found an audience for this.

Johan Hari of The Independent/UK has reported an amazing story this week about a woman who set out to save trees in Africa.

She was born on the floor of a mud hut with no water or electricity in the middle of rural Kenya, in the place where human beings took their first steps. There was no money but there was at least lush green rainforest and cool, clear drinking water. But Maathai watched as the life-preserving landscape of her childhood was hacked down. The forests were felled, the soils dried up, and the rivers died, so a corrupt and distant clique could profit. She started a movement to begin to make the land green again – and in the process she went to prison, nearly died, toppled a dictator, transformed how African women saw themselves, and won a Nobel Prize.

Her name is Wangari Maathai, and she considers herself a “daughter of the soil”.  Humbled be humans needs for trees, she returned to Africa after coming to the U.S. for college.  She was the first woman ever to get a PhD in East or Central Africa.  She convinced international aid organizations to pay some woman from the National Council of Women of Kenya to plant trees.  As Hari says, planting trees turned to planting ideas, and her own husband began to see her Maathai as a threat.

The very public divorce from her husband did not deter her from protesting and soon other men began to see her as a threat also.

But the initial reaction to her protests was frightening. She began to receive anonymous phone calls telling her should shut up or face death. Moi called her a “madwoman,” and announced: “According to African traditions, women should respect their men! She has crossed the line!” When she carried on, she was charged with treason – a crime which carried the death penalty – and was slammed away in prison. She had arthritis, and she says: “In that cold, wet cell my joints ached so much I thought I would die.” But she would not apologise, or give in. “What other people see as fearlessness is really persistence. Because I am focused on the solution, I don’t see the danger. If you only look at the solution, you can defy anyone and appear strong and fearless.”

She went on to get national recognition and has left Africa to spread her knowledge

The rainforests can be killed from two directions – by the saws of men like Moi, or the warming gases of people like us. That is why she has left the land she loves, armed with the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 2004, and travelled so far: to try to persuade us to let the forests live. “There are moments in history when humans have to raise their consciousness and see the world anew. This is one of those moments. We are being called to assist the earth in healing her wounds, and in the process we can heal our own. We can revive our sense of belonging to a larger community of life. We can see who we really are.”

I strongly suggest reading the rest of this amazing woman’s life here

Climate change has forced The Massai – a tribe in Kajiado, Kenya – to compete with animals over the water supply.  The tribe is struggling against the new seasonal weather patterns although they have been residents of the land for centuries.  Their quest for water takes the men into the capital, Nairobi.

As traditional cattle herders, the Maasai have found themselves leaving their homes for months at a time in search of pastures and water for their animals. In most cases this means vulnerable women, children and the elderly are left behind to fend for themselves in the villages.

Ebby Nanzala Wamatsi who wrote the article on The Massai for the Women News Network says in some cases women walk over 10 kilometers to fetch water and still there is a chance that they will return empty handed.   However, with the help of the United Nations Environment Programme, women are also taking action to change their situation.

The project is being spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Regional Land Management Unit of the World Agro-forestry Centre. The organisations are providing equipment and training for the women.

To date, over 200 tanks have been constructed under the initiative. The women are also involved in digging mini reservoirs or ‘earth-pans’ to collect run-off water from sloping land. This in turn is used for irrigation purposes to water their crop and vegetable fields.

The women of Kajiado have also begun a tree-planting project to encourage the Maasai to adopt a more settled communal way of life as arable farmers. It makes it compulsory for every household to plant at least a hundred trees.

“It’s time to determine our own destiny. I am anticipating cooler weather. We are fed up with scorching temperatures and spending entire days searching for water,” says Luise Mwoiko, chair of the Mataanobo Women’s Group.

The women’s initiative cooperates to construct water tanks from one homestead to another. And they are proud of their work, as Mwoiko makes clear. “We never bother our men to climb up the tanks and make the final touches. We do it ourselves,” says Mwoiko as she adds that the women’s husbands assist financially in the projects.

Another member, Jerusha Lasoi, said their projects will ensure that the Maasai will no longer require food aid from outside their community. Pointing to her secure reservoir of water, a milk cow and thriving business in vegetable sales, Lasoi felt confident in their future.

Education has already proved to be one of the main reasons communities survive and prosper.  Somalia, facing one of its biggest humanitarian crisis in 18 years, is struggling to get its women into colleges.  Whether it’s because they are forced to stay home after getting married or don’t have enough money to pay for tuition, women are getting an unequal chance at going to college.  However, as part of the U.N.’s millennium development goals, the UNDP has set up the Somali Women’s Scholarship Fund, and almost 200 women are taking advantage of it.  WeNews correspondent Lensay Abadula recently covered the issue and you can read more about it here.  Below is a video from UNDP-USA. You can check out their website to learn more about the fund and how to donate.

The law, the many Muslims say is an attack on their religion, is being reconsidered by President Amadou Toumani Toure.

Martin Vogl of BBC news quotes the president of Mali’s High Islamic Council

Mali’s current law specifically states that a wife must obey her husband, and that is the way things should stay says Mahmud Dicko, president of Mali’s High Islamic Council.

“We’re not trying to make women slaves. Not at all,” he says.

“It’s just the way our society is organised. The head of the family is the man, and everyone in the family has to obey him.

“It’s like that to create harmony.”

While men have outweighed women heavily at the protest, one woman explains why there is controversy:

Hadja Safiatou Dembele, president of the National Union of Muslim Women’s Associations (NUMWA), says the Koran is clear that a wife has the obligation to listen to her husband.

“A man must protect his wife. A wife must obey her husband,” she says.

“It’s a tiny minority of woman here who want this new law; the intellectuals. The poor and illiterate women of this country, the real Muslims, are against it.”

Some protesters have turned violent and Imam’s in Mali have threatened not to hold marriage ceremonies for those who voted for the law.

If the law is not changed, Mr Dicko of the High Islamic Council says the country’s politicians will get a nasty shock at the next elections.

“We are trying to keep people calm. We don’t want them to do anything that is against the law.

“Instead we are telling people that they elect the parliament, so if their members of parliament don’t listen to them, they will have the power to vote them out of office.”

In the face of such pressure, President Toure has backed down and sent the law back to parliament to be reviewed.

Rwandan women in U.N. run refugee camps in Uganda have taken to growing their own food instead of depending on unstable food rations.  The ability to sustain themselves and sell the extra food for profit have given these women a sense of empowerment which may be taken away if they are forced to return to Rwanda.

Read the full article and keep up to date with other news about women around the world at Women’s eNews.