I started this week by meeting Jorina, Senoare, Jahanara, Jasmin and Fatema. I already met these women last week, as they are members of a WMO and therefore present at their WMO’s annual meeting. Even though the annual meeting lasted for hours and everybody was visibly tired, these women were so eager to talk and share their experiences with me that I decided to meet them another time again. Women’s motivation to participate is not only shown by their attitudes during the meetings we organize, but also by the long distances they often travel (usually by foot) to come to these meetings – despite their often very busy schedule.

The meeting turned out to be great. The women clearly enjoyed talking to us and sharing their life stories and feelings. So did we. Their stories – like the stories of so many other women we spoke to – made a profound impression on us and – as women – you can’t help but empathize and really feel their problems. Not surprisingly, their stories of personal accomplishments and empowerment – however small and insignificant they may sometimes seem to be - brought us great joy. Many topics were discussed that afternoon, like their land related problems and the violence they experienced. It was great to see that for some women their land related problems belonged to the past, as they already obtained an official title to their land or where in the process of obtaining one - thanks to the help of CDSP. The women also reported a significant decrease in the levels of violence. According to them, this is the result of women’s right to land, their increased economic power and the greater awareness that now exists in local communities concerning women’s rights and the injustice of violence and abuse. Through their participation in WMO’s, women have also become more vocal and often assume a leadership position within the community. Not only are they consulted on WMO related issues, but for example also in cases of family disputes or violence against women. All five women took great pride in their new role in the community and were very happy with their increased mobility and power.
I always like to finish my meetings by giving people the opportunity to ask me questions, as I figure this is the least I can do after hours of interviewing. This is always a lot of fun and also gives me an idea of their thoughts and curiosities. Usually it takes some time for women to raise their hands and ask me a personal question. However, this time I was bombarded by questions. “Are you married?” “What do you think of us?” “What is it like for women in The Netherlands? Do they experience the same problems we do?” etc. When explaining that Dutch women of my generation generally experience greater equality in relation to men and that this is for an important part the result of struggles and emancipation processes of women in previous generations, the women responded by saying that this provided them with a great source of inspiration. They argued that they struggle to have a better life than their mothers and aim for their daughters to have a better life than themselves. They emphasized that seeing me and Anandita – and sharing our experiences – once again convinced them of the crucial importance of their fight for independence and empowerment. We all finished this meeting with feelings of great satisfaction and joy and were invited to their homes.

The rest of the week was spent on meetings with Social Forestry Groups (SFG’s) and Farmers Forums (FF’s). For the first time, male members were also part of the group discussions, which enabled us to really see the interaction between men and women and provided us with a wealth of information. It became obvious to us that men tend to dominate the discussions and leave very little room for women to speak. This required us to play a more dominating and coordinating role, in order for the women to have an opportunity to talk and actually participate in the discussion. Afterwards we often sat down with the women separately to evaluate the meeting and discuss sensitive topics like their reproductive health and violence against women. In my next blog, I’ll write in more detail on these very interesting meetings. Hope to be bloggin’ soon!