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Increasing Community Yields   
July 15, 2010 — Andrea Echavarria, Pompran Netayavichitr (pictured right) and Enriqueta Garat are changing the future of their countries by empowering women in their communities with the skills and information that will allow their families to prosper. As leaders, they understand that investing in women greatly enhances the well-being of families and their children, who are more likely to survive and thrive if their mothers are healthy and educated. They are reaching the women in their communities through a common resource: food. Andrea works in the Cartagena region of Colombia for the Carlos and Sonia Haime Foundation where she manages a project called Productive Patio Communities. Through this project women learn how to turn their backyard patios into gardens that will produce food to feed their families. “The patios allow women to ensure a balanced nutritional menu for their entire family, at the same time the patios improve their monthly income so they can cover their basic necessities, and the program educates and encourages sustainable environmental practices,” says Andrea. At the other end of the South American continent, Enriqueta and her organization, Fundacion Cruzada Patagonica, are working with women on sustainable farming practices as well. One of Enriqueta’s main goals is to encourage healthy nutrition in the indigenous communities of the Patagonia region in Argentina. “We work with women mainly because they’re the ones working in the gardens when we do our visits,” says Enriqueta. “They are used to only eating bread and meat so we’re working on the diversity of their diets.” As crops have increased in these communities, food consumption has become more varied, and women have begun to have surpluses that they’re able to sell in local markets. Pompran’s organization, Raks Thai Foundation - CARE Thailand, is directly working with women in the highlands of Thailand to change the way they grow food. Over the past few years farmers in the highlands have begun using chemical fertilizer in their crops to increase their yields, endangering the environment and their health. However, Pompran’s project is changing this mindset by educating the women farmers about the benefits of using natural growing methods. “We work with women because they are thinking about good health, and they want their children to be healthy and happy,” says Pompran. “It started with a few families switching and now there are groups of women doing it and seeing the benefits.”
As the women begin to reap crops from their naturally grown gardens and farms they form an informal bartering system amongst villages to promote trade and support for their food. Andrea, Enriqueta and Pompran are at CEDPA headquarters in Washington, D.C. along with 23 other women leaders for CEDPA’s month-long Global Women in Management workshop. During this workshop, the participants will gain tools and hone their leadership skills in fundraising, proposal management, strategic communications, entrepreneurship and advocacy. One of the goals of the workshop is a south-to-south exchange of ideas and practices that can cross cultures. The women strategize with each other about ideas they can implement to increase local food production or other forms of women’s economic participation in their communities. CEDPA’s Global Women in Management program has been supported since 2005 by the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Educating Women and Girls Initiative. Learn more about CEDPA’s training programs. |
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