A bag of seed, Tsh 100,000, a pair of Khanga.... and Voila! You are empowered!

 

Women Participating in workshop for Violence Against Women in Mining Areas, in Singida Region

I once visited this " very good responsible" government institutions and  i asked how do they work with women, the person at the desk was quick to say... "We are empowering women. Last year, we provided 200 bags of maize and Tsh 100,000 to 40 households. Women now are empowered" My eyes opened wide and i asked again, how does this benefit women in the long run, and the guy minced the words and lunch time was there so, i left with my question still in my mouth...

Women empowerment... It often come in form of services, training, cash, the give away that benefit women at one time on the particular moment! In most cases, the training for empowerment are mostly instructional, with the expert - ignorant approach, with no follow up, and very technical where women like my mother who live in Nzogonaminze village would never understand a word. In these trainings, power point presentations with highly fashioned graphs and numbers and percentages are presented to women whom their whole lives have been around their land, children, mining, food and survival. 

A friend of mine once said, "We do not empower women, every woman has a strength which, because of our culture and  tradition towards women, it is suppressed, deep down it is still their, and our work, should be working with them to rekindle that strength... To re surface that strength, and that is empowerment" And it is from this point of view where we should assess ourselves whether the trainings we conduct is empower women! Do they bring the best out of women, do the trainings we conduct give women power or take  power  away from them!  

In one of the  very resource rich community here in Tanzania, a mining company had a project on women empowerment and they were providing money to women groups to develop their business. After some time, they found out that the groups had broken down  and some of the women would not talk to each other because they thought others had a bigger share on the money the company provided. When i asked how did this benefit women, they were quick to say "That is how women are, they hate each other" ... I think you may have heard about this from somewhere else, where this kind of patriarchy approach have taken place and it ends up with the same lies.. Women hate each other!

Supporting women initiative as part of empowerment is one of the best approach, although the process and timing of support should be critical. Strengthening women capacity should be one of the step before providing resources. Working with women to develop self awareness, different capacities and independence to manage and work with resources provided as a journey to demanding their rights, question the political agendas and advance their livelihood! Empowerment is a process from within, the personal quality that every woman possess.

The bag of maize and tsh 100,000 and a pair of khanga, and two days technical training which has no connection with anything whatsoever is not a miracle for women empowerment. It is not a fair substitute for the resources taken, land polluted or rights  violated. It is a patriarchy approach which places women as receiver of services and favors rather than key players in the sector governance and management.