Extraordinary Women. Strong Women. Shy Women. Fierce Women. Determined Women.
Women who don’t just accept the situation that they’re presented with, but seek instead to make things better, step by step, using everything at their disposal for the good of their families and communities.
These are the women we know and love, within our communities here, and in our communities in East Africa.
African Road knows that women are vital to holistic change, to building thriving communities, maintaining stable countries and a forging a better world. There isn’t a single part of the work of African Road that doesn’t seek to actively celebrate women, sometimes directly, providing business training and support, sometimes indirectly, through the empowerment and support of entire communities.
The statistics suggest that when there is poverty, injustice, or disruption, women are the worst hit[1].
We also know, because we’ve seen it first hand, that whenever there is challenge, poverty and injustice, women are often the first to step up, to step in.
African Road builds relationships with Changemakers, dedicated grassroots leaders in East Africa, because we recognise that coming alongside local leaders is the best way to see empowerment and lasting change and address the global imbalances in our world that have left some people with less opportunity and excluded.
Today, International Women’s Day, and every day, we celebrate the vibrancy, resilience, compassion, and dignity of the women we have the honor of partnering with.
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Tanzania
Changemakers Consoler and Eliya Wilbert have created a healing haven for girls as young as eight who have gone through or face real risks of indentured servitude, extreme poverty and child marriage. Their family, New Hope for Girls, is a place of welcome, support and encouragement, equipping young women to grow up strong, healthy and independent. They are nurturing and empowering the next generation of women in Tanzania, who will be better able to name and promote their own rights, and the rights of others.
Changemaker Consoler has overcome her own experience of childhood trauma and tragedy and now is committed to create a better future for other young women. Consoler is also committed to addressing the systematic issues that underlie the risk girls can face. Consoler works to educate law enforcement officials, advocate for national policy changes and address misguided cultural practices, in order to create a better future for all.
The story of New Hope for Girls, a remarkable family of 42, is the story of the way that one women chose transformation rather than bitterness, and in doing so has transformed the lives of many others, those girls within her family, and all of the people they will go on to meet and interact with.
Rwanda
In Rwanda, Changemaker Penina, President and long-standing member of Togetherness Youth Cooperative, has gained experience, training and a university degree as a result of partnership with African Road. She now oversees the work, business, care, progress and advancement of this group of young people who gathered after the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi, in partnership with founder and inspiration, Steven.
This community thrives because of the women, and the men who lead it forward. Today we celebrate the women leaders of Togetherness, Penina, Annet, Athanasie, who serve on the leadership team and contribute to the life of Togetherness.
Another source of pride and income is the Togetherness Women’s Bakery, located on the Togetherness site. The bakery produces heavenly smelling loaves and the best carrot muffins in the region. This isn’t just about excellent baked goods, this is tangible innovation, strength and livelihood, something that will not only economically sustain, but that also belongs to these women, their business, their sense of ownership.
Close by, the Ebenezer Women’s Cooperative and community savings group, works together to build business for everyone in their community. As their businesses have grown, so has their confidence, their sense in which they are able to take on the world, and succeed. Many of these women were widowed in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, but, thanks to empowerment and hope and practical skills, this is no longer the defining focus of their lives.
DRC
The Women of Goma, three groups of fierce and fine businesswomen, were emboldened and advanced by VICOBA training, facilitated by Ugandan Changemaker David Clemy and his team. Being a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo can sometimes be an unenviable task. With serious risk of sexual violence or abandonment, women are also often the major income providers for their families. In response to the VICOBA Plus training, these three groups of women are making and growing small businesses with pride.
On a recent trip to the DRC, we learnt that one of the substantial shifts for these groups of women included an increased openness to women of different social strata. The DRC has clear lines of demarcation around social protocol and acceptability, one of the seemingly lower rungs being women who are married to soldiers or militia. As a result of the mindset shift from an individual focus to a strong sense of community, thanks to the training, these women have become welcoming. They are all working in respectful partnership to ensure that every woman receive the training and opportunities they need to thrive in this complex context.
Burundi
Thanks to their immense courage, with the encouragement of Changemaker Evariste, and the strategic support of friends of African Road, three Batwa women in Burundi are attending university. These are some of the first Batwa women in Burundi to study at university and they are women who serve on the ASSEJEBA leadership team . These three, Josiane, Sylvane and Albertine, are expected to be the second, third and fourth Batwa women to ever graduate from university in the history of their country. This education doesn’t simply empower these women, it shows entire communities what women are capable of, it breaks through the mud-hut ceiling of possibility.
International Women’s Day 2020 is just one opportunity to celebrate the women we know, the women who are our friends, who we care about, and who we see changing our world. Of the groups most maligned in society, it is challenging to find any more overlooked than the tribal Batwa people of East Africa. The women of this tribe are some of the most marginalized in the world.
Most Batwa women in Burundi do not have legal Identity and therefore lack the right to gain an education, are harassed on public transport, are unable to legally marry or to send their children to the local health clinic or to school, and crucially, are not permitted. vote. This sentences them to live an invisible existence. It is a challenge to prove your identity when you don’t have a birth certificate.
One of the most strategic and powerful ways that these extreme obstacles can be overcome is by ensuring that women, men and all children, receive ID cards and birth certificates, giving them the legal right to live as full humans in their own country. The incredible indigenous Batwa leadership team; called ASSEJEBA, is working with community after community, to ensure the dream of legal identity can become a reality.
This International Women’s Day, we are highlighting Batwa Women and an incredible opportunity to transform lives. African Road in partnership with One Day’s Wages (who is offering a matching funds challenge of $20,000) is working to see Evariste and the ASSEJEBA team equipped to deliver more Identity Kits. When matched, this becomes $40,000 in funding to enable 275 women and their families (more than 1,000 people) to receive ID Cards and Kits (marriage, voter registration, access to education, healthcare and justice.)
To become part of a story of transformation and to practically recognize these invisible women, learn more and support this vital work, click here.
[1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/why-majority-worlds-poor-are-women