What does women’s empowerment really mean?

If you want to address poverty, then your best investment is women. It’s true. They’ll work hard, share what they have and provide without hesitation for their children and families. The catch phrase for this kind of work has become women’s empowerment. I love the phrase but I sometimes worry about the application. In the developing world, empowerment indicators most often revolve around economics under the assumption that employment plus income lead directly to empowerment. So, we teach women a skill. And measure enrolment and course participation metrics. We support employment placement or start-up businesses. Then review by growth in household income and workplace numbers.  

But is this the full story or is empowerment a more complicated outcome?

I think empowerment is far broader than economics. It’s about friendship, value, power and influence. It’s not only about assuming the economic responsibility for a family but taking up community roles, partnering in decision making, having representation in government and being treated with respect and dignity. Inside and outside of the home.  

And this broader understanding of empowerment should be an encouragement to all of us who want to make a difference in the lives of women across the world. Of course, providing access to skills and finances gives access to one dimension of empowerment. But may we never forget the value of cheerleading, connection, advocacy, listening and telling their stories, truthfully and respectfully. Because we don’t empower others, we just offer them the tools, encouragement and opportunity to take it up for themselves.  

When I remember this, I know I can make a contribution. Together we all bring the little we have and start to make a dent on poverty that can last a lifetime.  

Kelley Chisholm

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Never doubt the extraordinary difference we can make together! 

“The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of woman who are valued.”  – Michelle Obama 

For decades, charity in the Developing World has centred on Western generosity funding infrastructure and poverty alleviation. It’s easy to see the needs in our world:  clean water, food security, access to sanitation and education…but for all our aid and welfare support, the returns have been far ‘poorer’ than expected. Not only has the gap increased between the rich and the poor, but the poor have become poorer. 

And now, in the 21st Century, we wonder what we can do differently? How can we champion and contribute to those living in poverty in ways that are sustainable, respectful (of people and culture) and empowering? 

My first lesson was understanding the many faces of poverty. Economic and physical indicators are far easier to see, photograph and measure. We talk about numbers of children immunised, operations performed, wells built, small business started, children in school and growth in dollars earned per day.

But in many ways, they are the face of poverty but not its heart.

And addressing and celebrating changes in these numbers reassure us that we are making a difference – yet they also act to sedate us to other more sinister indicators of poverty: self-worth, self-determination, social isolation, political exclusion, and domestic violence. 

If we offer schooling, even higher education, but don’t provide entrepreneurial and personal development training, then most graduates will leave unemployed and disillusioned. If women start and build small businesses but remain outsiders in family and community decision making, then they gain responsibility without power. If we provide community training and infrastructure without connecting the poor to others, then they remain alone. The harshest of conditions.

It is not the needs that are difficult to identify but the method. The process. The approach. We have learned of the need for consultation and delegated decision making, for indigenous organisations to lead the community engagement and development of strategy, and for starting with an objective of sustainable development. An impact or outcome that lasts well after activity stops. 

But Foxglove believes in another important element. That addressing poverty means engaging the women of a community. In much of the Developing World, women are secondary citizens. Marginalised and excluded. But something wonderful happens when women make their way to the centre. They become connectors, share resources and knowledge, call for change that benefits others and address issues of children and human rights.

I was reminded of this on a recent visit to Rwanda when meeting with a woman who in the last nine months has helped form and now leads a Federation overseeing 2500 of the district’s poorest women in Self Help Groups. The Self Help Groups (SHGs) connect 20 women together for life. They gain a social cohesion and belonging that changes their place in the community. They start small businesses that enable them to support their own families with basic and higher-level needs. They join village committees as leaders and decision-makers. They take up a role as empowered and contributing members of their community and they could be forgiven for seeing the Federation as a way to advance their own needs and position. But when I ask Virginie about the current goal of the Federation, her response could not be more different, 

 “We have a goal to change the way children are treated in our community. Before we joined the SHG and took part in trainings, we didn’t know that we were mistreating our children.  Sometimes we were hurting them and other times we were neglecting them. Now we understand. Now we plan to find ways to educate our community and our schools about the rights and care of children. We will not stop until this is done.” 

I thought of my meeting with Virginie when reading this quote from Michelle Obama,
“The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of woman who are valued.”  

On this International Day of Charity, let us acknowledge that the act of doing good can be based on more than good intentions and visual outcomes. It has the ability to bring out the capacity in people that they might live fulfilled empowered lives, both serving and changing their communities.  

Kelley Chisholm

To read more about how Foxglove is engaging the poorest women through the Self Help Group approach, please visit our Grassroots Rwanda page.

Thank God it’s over. Thank God it’s not real. And then I remember, it is real. For 3.6 billion of the earth’s population.   

This week I’ve been attending an international development conference in Hong Kong for my work. The one that allows me to volunteer for Foxglove. And on the last day, we visit Crossroads International for a training. A simulation exercise to experience, in some form, for just a few hours, poverty in the Developing World.  

Seventy of us enter a large room. We sit on a concrete floor, empty aside from rusty corrugated iron wall paneling and a few makeshift shops. We talk about the definition of poor. The expectations of charities. The assumptions of those looking in on the poor. And then we prepare to experience a ‘day’ in their shoes.  

They divide us into family groups spread around the room on plastic mats. They tell us the average slum ‘room’ is 2m x 2m. This is the dimension of our mat for eating, sleeping and working together. We’re instructed of the living costs we need to meet today: 180 for floor space, 20 for utilities, 80 for food, 30 for sanitation. The latter is an optional extra. But we’ve got an income source. Making paper bags from old newspaper glued together by a home brew of water and flour. And the buyers are the shopkeepers. Local merchants also struggling to survive.  

The next hour is a haze of noise, rejection, begging, and work that fails to meet the minimum targets. We start with intent and vigour but the desperation grows each moment. We start to offer our possessions and confront our own values and integrity in the quest for survival.  

 And I feel like I’m in a washing machine struggling for breath. I cannot think of tomorrow when today looks hopeless and urgent. I’ll work all day. All night. But the challenge to survive is overwhelming. And this is day one.  

I’m relieved when it ends. It’s a simulation but you don’t escape the feelings of anxiety, despair and desperation. And as we sit to reflect and debrief. There’s a different atmosphere. A room full of aid workers with more questions than answers.

Apparently, during our work period, there were ‘callouts’ from charities for education. I didn’t hear them. For healthcare. I didn’t hear them. For vocational training. I didn’t hear them. All I heard was the cries of my children, the clamour of the streets and the poverty message going around and around in my mind. Driving me to do more. To do anything. 

It’s a confronting exercise. And for a time during the debrief, I’m tempted to throw up my hands in my own act of despair. Until the facilitator helps the room to calm. “Thank you”, he tells us. “Thank you for coming, for feeling, for caring, for crying.” I had cried. “Thank you for putting up your hand to do what you can, give what you have and hold hands with those you reach. It’s enough for one. And the world needs you.” 

 And I’m reminded that though the world is broken and reeling, the light remains.  

 So do good.  

 Love relentlessly.  

 May we never let poverty rest. May we never let poverty win.

We were hot and tired from a day of travel, but as we arrived, you could see women gathering. They were walking quickly along the dusty path with the sound of the city far behind us.

For some reason, one of the starkest memories of that visit was the children playing in the field with tall electricity towers looming. There was an eery feeling as we drove through this manufactured community. One of displacement.

The women were coming together for their weekly sewing lesson. We walked through dark hallways until we found them sitting on the floor, bare foot and waiting.

Three women from Australia were sitting face to face with women in India, and we were equals.

She was learning a craft for her children; we were looking into their eyes wanting to discover story and camaraderie.

She was finding her voice in a season of transition; we were hoping to remind ourselves again after a season of in-between.

That trip to India has stayed present in my perspective, every time I think of womankind collectively.

I believe there is a sound of womanhood rising by empowering one another rather than competing. I love the work of Foxglove and the Birds Nest India project because its based on empowerment rather than handouts.

Watching the women walk to their program and find their voice collectively was a memory I cannot forget.

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce and strong, and full of fire and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears.”  Mark Anthony

There is a collective sound of women rising, and it is in the hallways of encouragement rather than patronage. When one woman finds her voice in the developing world, she lifts her neighbour up as well. The direct result of empowering a woman in these Indian programs is an impact on families, villages and the future.

It was an absolute privilege to visit many programs throughout Chennai India. Each day when I think fondly of the women we encountered, I see a company of women smiling at their greater tomorrow.

The sound of women is rising, and beauty personified by the way we hold up each other’s arms.

Amanda Viviers

Amanda has published five books and is a presenter on radio across New Zealand and Australia. She is also the co-founder of Kinwomen; a network created to inspire women to start conversations that matter. Driven by a passion for social justice, loves supporting projects for women in developing countries. Teaching women to live creative lives, beyond the circumstances, is something she pursues daily. Wife of Charl and Mum of Maximus and Liberty, she lives a creative life, longing to see people live inspired.

So our Foxglove team has been on leave for a few weeks. Taken holidays and gone fishing. It’s necessary in the world of helping others that we stop to make sure we’re personally and collectively travelling well. And we’ve learned some things.

So here’s our top 3 lessons learned in 2017:

1. MEASURE IMPACT NOT ACTIVITY

It’s so easy to measure organisational achievement by numbers that measure activity: training sessions conducted, girls in school or business start ups. The discussion becomes all about efficiency. Price per head, expenses as percentage of income etc. etc. But measuring impact means looking at outcomes AND progress. From every angle. Of course, there is a need for numbers but only when applying well considered measurements. What is this number telling us? And add to that stories, feedback from family and community, and a list of achievements or even learnings from failed initiatives.  Together they form a picture of the impact we can collectively celebrate.

2. FROM LITTLE THINGS, BIG THINGS GROW

Sustainable progress takes time. Don’t over-emphasise endpoint outcomes and miss out on the milestones. Along the way there is so much beauty: a village running a community meeting about girl health and education, a family reforming after addressing long-term issues of domestic violence, a woman reading for the first time, a girl joining her mum in a family ‘business’ and even buying her first plot of land. It’s a tiny parcel, barely an Australian vegetable patch, but she’s overwhelmed at the possibilities. I don’t want to miss the small moments in chasing the big outcomes. From little things, big things grow.

3. LEARN FROM THE JOURNEY

People matter. Every person matters. The direct beneficiaries. Their communities and family members. The Foxglove team. And our donors and supporters. So, the objective is sustainable life change for everyone. When there are so many people in the Foxglove chain, we have to be prepared to slow things down. It’s not my personality but I’m learning like everyone else that I need to discover options that build for the long-term not the quick fix. And that also means working through the challenges in our personal worlds. When we recognise this for ourselves, we give others permission to ‘stop and smell the roses’. Funnily enough, this applies just as much to women in the Developing World. We are all at risk of valuing ourselves according to what we do rather than who we are.

I trust you’ve had a wonderful break. Now I’m ready to get back on the horse. Not galloping wildly. Not meandering without purpose. More of a graceful canter carrying Foxglove towards more opportunities to do good and inspire others. Who knows the lessons we will again learn along the way in 2018!

❤ Kelley