A Small Cash Box Powers Up Girls in Burundi (REPORT)

The precious savings and loans box contains funds for both the building of girl adolescent dreams - and emergencies. CREDIT: M Bociurkiw/HUMNEWSBy a HUMNEWS Correspondent in East Africa

(HN, July 15, 2011) - It doesn't look like much at first glance, but the small tin cash box holds in it a lot of promise and dreams for about 30 girls gathered today in a suburb of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

Not surprisingly, custodians of the box protect it with all they have. Not only does it help funds dreams through small loans, it also helps out members of the Ishaka solidarity group in times of crisis, perhaps to fund funeral expenses.

Little wonder then that the group’s savings are kept in a locked box that has three padlocks, held by three different girls.

This group of girls belong to Ishaka - a project to socially and economically empower girls, aged 14-22 in the two main urban areas of Burundi.

Many of their stories bear painful similarities. Young girls who loose their parents or care givers, or are thrown out onto the streets after becoming pregnant at a young age. They try to fend for themselves, end up having to beg for money or engage as sex workers, become pregnant and can no longer fend for themselves.

Even in relatively normal household environments in Burundi, domestic violence is widespread, says CARE Burundi Country Director Michelle Carter. It is believed that decades of civil unrest has created an environment for domestic violence to thrive. In addition, the unrest and scourge of HIV and AIDS has left behind many orphans.

To make matters worse, discriminatory laws and a patriarchal system make young women more susceptible to early marriage, sexual exploitation and early pregnancy.

Many girls find Ishaka at the depths of utter despair. The solidarity group not only helps boost their self confidence, it extends micro-loans for approved projects and educates the girls on life skills such as how to protect themselves against sexually-transmitted diseases.

Three succesful graduates from Ishaka who run their own businesses in Bujumbura. CREDIT: M Bociurkiw/HUMNEWSIshaka provides financial support so that the girls will not be forced to beg for money from boys and others. The loans are small - as little as $33 dollars, even less sometimes - but enough for the girls to start small businesses. One girl sold enough beer to purchase a rabbit that would be rented out for breeding. That eventually generated enough income for a goat and some pigs, and then school fees. Another borrowed just eight dollars to start an egg business, which eventually propelled her back to school.

Every participant is expected to make a deposit at each meeting: in this case 80% is dedicated towards a savings and loan fund and 20% towards social causes, or a rainy-day fund. At the beginning of each meeting, the savings are carefully counted - in such silence one could hear a pin drop.

"If not for Ishaka I wouldn't be where I am," said one graduate, who has opened up a small farm. "I'm no longer dependent on boys."

Christine, another participant who is a single mother of two, used her first loan to buy and sell corn. Within five months she paid back the loan, used her profits to build a small home and even ended up with some savings. "I put the past behind me and replaced it with dignity," she said.

The mechanics are elegantly simple: a group is self-selected and self-managed, with between 10-30 members. All members must meet and save on a regular basis. Decisions are made collectively, and subtle peer pressure helps ensure compliance.

Carefully tabulating the day's intake of savings and loans. CREDIT: M Bociurkiw/HUMNEWS

A solar-powered and wind-up radios play an integral part of this initiative, by allowing groups to listen to financial literacy and life skills broadcasts.

When asked what skills they would like to pick-up, the girls said they are keen to learn soap-making as it could be easily sold in their community for income.

The Ishaka project has been supported by the Nike Foundation, with funding totalling $2.58 million over three-and-a-half years. More than 12,000 girls have benefited so far, with another 8,000 still to take advantage.

Many participants discover Ishaka by word of mouth, or from CARE staff during visits to various neighbourhoods. In early phases CARE staff provide intensive monitoring, but gradually blend into the background to allow the girls to lead themselves.

One of the wonderful aspects of the project, Carter said, is that it is easily replicable, designed to be scaled-up when necessary. Infrastructure and overhead is kept to a minimum.

To be sure, the graduates, or successful businesswomen, serve as superb role models for the younger participants.

At a recent meeting in June, one 22-year-old gave a passionate lecture on the scourge of HIV and AIDS, and quizzed her younger colleagues on how to protect themselves.

Afterwards, old and young embraced each other and erupted into a spontaneous celebration of song and dance.

International Women's Day (Report)

File photo (HN, March 8, 2011) -- Today is the 100^th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which was held by only a handful of  European countries in 1911 – where more than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, hold public office and end discrimination.

Themes on politics, human rights, and gender equality continue to create social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide.

In the past century much progress has been made in gender equality – in 1911 only a few countries in the world allowed women to vote – New Zealand, South Australia (both self-governing British colonies) and the Grand Duchy of Finland - today that right is practically universal.

However, there are still many challenges for women and girls around the world. According to UN Women, the Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment for Women, almost two out of three illiterate adults are women, girls are still less likely to be in school than boys, and every 90 seconds of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy or do to childbirth-related complications.

Women, around the globe, continue to earn less than men for the same work. In addition and despite many high-profile advances, women still make up only 19 percent of legislatures, 8 percent of peace negotiators, and 28 women are heads of state or government.  

The International Labour Organization (IOL) Director General Juan Somavia has said that “achieving gender equality remains a major challenge for the labor movement in the world because securing sustainable and equitable recovery and a fair globalization demand gender-aware responses.” Somavia made the statement while reacting to ILO’s latest report which disclosed that both women and men continue to feel the impact of the economic crisis, with the global unemployment rate for men standing at 6 percent in 2010 and at 6.5 percent for women.

Afghan women demonstrate for equal rights, photo courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk

In some countries IWD is designated as a national holiday - Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia

In Armenia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, IWD celebrations were abandoned. Instead, April 7 was introduced as a state holiday for “Beauty and Motherhood”. The new holiday immediately became popular among Armenians, as it commemorates one of the main holidays of the Armenian Church, the Annunciation.

To celebrate IWD, Italian men give yellow mimosas to women. Yellow mimosas and chocolates are also among the most common March 8 presents in Russia and Albania. The mimosa’s bright yellow is seen as a symbol of vitality, joy, wisdom and warmth.

In Pakistan, working women celebrate IWD to commemorate their ongoing struggle for due rights, despite facing many cultural and religious restrictions.

In poor developing countries, especially is where we most often see gender inequality and abuses facing women daily.

photo courtesy of listgalorNicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn expose major abuses of women in developing countries in their book Half the Sky. They tell stories of women being victimized by their government, by their communities, by relatives, strangers until there is no where left to turn. However, what is inspiring about this book is that women who survived became business owners, activists, community organizers teachers, teachers, surgeons, and mothers who could show their children an example of a strong, valuable woman who is making a living, participating in household decisions, and respected by her husband and community.

60 percent of the worlds one billion poorest people are female; women work two-thirds of working hours but earn only 10 percent of the income.

Dr. Helene Gayle, President and CEO of CARE, a humanitarian organization working to end global poverty points out that “women and girls bear the brunt of poverty and it is clear that women are our greatest hope for ending it.”

Gayle goes on to say that “for every year of education that a woman can have, she is more likely to have good health, to give birth to a child who survives and to send that child to school.”

Many organizations, such as the Nike Foundation’s Girl Effect, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 women and Exxon Mobil’s Women’s Economic Opportunity and more believe that investing early in a girl’s life, before she becomes a woman, only amplifies the potential of what she can do in life and yields a greater return for everyone around her. 

- HUMNews Staff 

The Nike Foundation's "Girl Effect" (Exclusive report)

From the ground up – Small-scale, grassroots programs for girls are informed by local expertise, networks and cultural propriety. Here, EMpower and Nishtha (which means “devotion” in Bengali) in West Bengal provide tools and training for girls to educate their peers about issues such as reproductive health. (photo: Nike Foundation) (HN, October 4, 2010) - Most NGOs and UN agencies probably look at Leslie Lane and his dream team at the Nike Foundation with a sense of envy.

As Vice-President and Managing Director of the foundation, the Briton, Lane, has at his disposal a healthy bank account, the freedom to do targeted, long-term interventions - and a crack team of professionals that are able to develop and monitor projects in developing countries with a business sense.

What's more, Lane says, he isn't encumbered with the branding side of Nike - or having to squeeze PR points out of the foundation's projects around the world.

"We've really been given the space to address the issues surrounding adolescent girls. We're not about building markets….We're really free to work where the greatest need is for adolescent girls and not to be driven by a marketplace approach," said Lane.

The six-year-old Nike Foundation is obsessed with the so-called `Girl Effect' - empowering adolescent girls to take better care of themselves, become active and energize other girls so that they can protect themselves from scourges ranging from HIV and AIDS to sex slavery. In many parts of the world, girls are forced into early marriages, have children before they enter adulthood and are seen as little more than assets by family and community members.

Lane cited as an example of what Nike gets back from the foundation's work is learning a lot about social networking - or about specific markets - and that knowledge gets pushed back to colleagues on the brand side. "There is transfer of learning going in from across two very different worlds," he said. And for the Foundation - access to a pool of top professionals from one of the world's most successful and widely-known brands.

"Our advantage, in some ways, is that we are actually small, and the whole concept of the foundation is to really work with multiple partners and agencies and individuals interested in this area to help move the whole agenda forward. We can get very entrepreneurial and leveraged obsessed when we do our work," Lane said in an interview with HUMNEWS following the Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York, where the foundation premiered the fantastically compelling three-minute `Girl Effect' video.

Lane, himself a veteran of the international business world - he has an MA in Chemistry from Oxford and a MBA from Harvard and before heading Nike's global running business worked with Roll International and Bain and Company - says he collaborates with "a balanced team that combines professionals from brand management as well as knowledgeable people with field experience from the development side". The foundation tries to maintain very close relationships with its programme partners in the field, spending as much time with them as possible. The nimble nature of the organization allows it to easily shift course mid-stream if evidence shows the need for adjustments.

The foundation, which is supported by Nike Inc. and the NoVo Foundation, is unique in the sense that it has an exclusive focus on adolescent girls in the developing world. They define the `Girl Effect' as: `improving a girl's life in order to improve the lives of those around her; her brothers, sisters, parents and beyond. As an educated mother, an active citizen and an ambitious entrepreneur, or prepared employee - she can break the cycle of poverty.

The Foundation cites stark statistics that underpin its focused mission: nearly half of girls in most developing countries are married before they turn 20, and about half bear children while still children themselves. Half of sexual assaults are against girls younger than 15 and young girls disproportionately carry the burden of HIV and AIDS; in Sub-Saharan Africa 76 percent of infected youths are females.

Keeping girls in school pays incredible dividends, the foundation says. With just seven or more years of education, a girl customarily marries four years later, and has 2.2 fewer children. An extra year of primary school boosts future wages by as much as 20 percent, and an extra year of secondary school by as much as a quarter.

Lane knows better than many how to achieve results against a ticking clock: he was a competitive runner in high school and a college rugby player and rower.

Lane credits the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which this year incorporated a plenary session on girls and women, for placing issues related to adolescent girls front and centre. "There was strong recognition that the power of adolescent girls could actually have impact on the many issues that face the attendees of CGI - whether it be health, education, peace and security, or economic growth. Girls were emphasized as a tremendous resource for positive change."

When asked what project he is particularly proud of, Lane points to the foundation's support of an initiative to address the issue of child marriages in the Amphora region of Ethiopia. In less than two years, families are seeing the value of keeping girls in school longer. "We've been able to show people the value of the girl," said Lane.

Lane says more emphasis is being placed on his foundation and others in the development field on results-oriented programming. "The real shift in development is coming with people that are very much focused on outcomes than on inputs: you can distribute a certain number of (anti-malaria) bed nets, but making sure that the outcome of those bed nets being used effectively to control malaria is really an outcome-based orientation."

Asked whether the message to invest in girls is getting through to African leaders, Lane says he is seeing a shift. "We are very much at a tipping point: there are some real visionary leaders in Africa that have recognized this already. There is programming and agencies and people are working very hard to continue to tell these stories (of success). " He pointed to a conditional cash transfer programme directly to girls in Malawi that has had a tremendous effect on the reduction and prevalence of HIV infections among girls there.

--- Reporting by HUMNEWS'  Michael Bociurkiw.