March 8 is
International Women’s Day, a day that originally started to celebrate and
encourage the movements made by suffragettes around the world who were fighting
for women’s rights in the workplace and for the right to vote. Today it is
still celebrated around the world for in nearly all countries we can still find
inequalities between men and women. I find that the celebration of this day and
the things it symbolizes is especially important in countries like Togo, where
traditional gender roles place men as the authority over women and do not
provide for equality in decision making in the household or the work force.
While education and access to information may be changing this gender balance
in Togo, there is still a lot of work to do.
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| Girls collecting water from one of the few wells that haven't dried up in Solla |
Volunteers from across Togo can
testify to the inequality they see on a daily basis between men and women,
between girls and boys. Women and girls are expected to sweep the house, to
prepare all the meals, to fetch water for bathing, drinking and cooking, to
collect wood for cooking, to sow seed and harvest from the fields, to sell the
goods from the harvest in the market, to prepare food or drink for sale. These
are time consuming activities, especially when you consider that they may need
to travel over a kilometer to find the closest water source and may need to
make 3 or 4 trips in order to collect enough water for the household’s daily
needs.
Men have their roles as well; they
are expected to build the yam hills in the fields and the rows for corn, to
build the houses where the families live, to serve as an authority to solve the
family’s problems, to provide money to pay for the needs of the household. But
these tasks do not take nearly the time as those of women and by midday, most
men are busy drinking with their buddies and sleeping under the mangos trees
while the women continue to work. In the evenings, they are free to play soccer
and promenade in the markets while the girls and women prepare for all the
households evening needs. The balance of
work is not equal. And neither is the balance of choice.
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| A man in Solla working the rice fields |
In this culture, the men,
especially in rural areas, often dictate decisions. They decide whether or not
their daughters will be allowed to go to school, whether the mother will be
able to take family planning measures. And women are taught that they must be
subordinate to men. They are taught that their thoughts are not of value in
decision-making. This has lead many women to be timid around men, to lack
confidence in themselves and their ability to speak thoughtfully. It is an
unfortunate thing, especially since it is the women who truly understand the
problems of the family and the community and only through this understanding
can we ever find the solutions.
But this situation can change. It
can change by influencing women, but showing them their power and influence and
instilling in them the confidence to assert their beliefs, to mobilize their
communities and sensitize them on the issues they face. When a person is
confident in themselves and their convictions, others listen. It is when we are
timid and unsure of ourselves that people tend to doubt our ideas and in turn
doubt us.
This is why in 2011, Peace Corps
Togo organized the first Women’s Wellness and Empowerment conference. The idea
was to give women a forum where they could share ideas and experiences in a
setting that would be more comfortable and educative than that which they
encounter in villages where men often talk over the women and don’t give them
the change to speak. This year, the fourth annual conference was held in my
regional capital of Kara, in the north of Togo and I had the opportunity to be
among those on the organizing team.
My fellow National Coordinator Priya
and I worked over the last several months with Mimi (the president of the NGO P2M-
Pour Une Monde Meilleur who is our host organization and a dedicated partner for
women’s rights and empowerment in Togo), and Erin, our Monitoring and
Evaluation Chair, to plan the conference and international women’s day event.
The conference started with a
training of trainers, which was well organized by Erin to teach the trainers
about different learning styles, the importance of incorporating visual,
auditory and kinesthetic learning tools in each session and how to work well
with co-facilitators. After session development, we decorated the center to
prepare for the welcoming of our participants.
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| Getting excited for the tour of Kara! |
The participants arrived tired from
the long voyage and largely timid and uncertain about what was to come. They
were given a short time to rest after registration and then were allowed to go
on a tour of Kara that we’d programmed for them. The 30 women plus 5 Togolese
trainers went for an hour tour of the city to visit the market, Palais de Congres, the Université de Kara
and other sites around town. Most of these women had never been to Kara and
some had never left the vicinity of their villages.
That evening after dinner was one
of the most touching parts of the conference, the candlelight ceremony. It was
organized and lead by our Togolese organizer and past participant Mimi, with
help from three other past participants who had been invited back this year to
serve as trainers. Mimi talked about how she was a model of what the conference
can do, of how she came as a participant and has grown in her self-confidence
and leadership as a direct result of the faith the conference has put in her. Her
speech testified to the values of the conference. She talked of how at first we
start in obscurity, uncertain of our rights and our power. But how someone can
illuminate you and bring you into the light, for education is not the filling
of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. At this point we lit the candle she held
in her hands and she then used this flame to light the candles of the women to
either side, who one by one spread their flame and brought the rest of the
circle of women into the light.
The other past participants then
spoke of the importance of sharing this light, of not letting it rest with you
alone, so that the nation of women can be brought out of isolation and darkness
and into the light of confidence that can change their lives. They also spoke
of the times when their candle went out, when they encountered difficulties
that left them discouraged and fatigued. In these moments, they said, it’s
important to turn to your friends and neighbors who you have illuminated, for
they now hold the fire that can relight your own.
It was striking for me to watch
Mimi and the woman that I’d sent to the conference last year lead this session
with such confidence and ease. It’s beautiful to see how they have grown and
continue to inspire.
The following day focused on
women’s rights issues. There was a session on self-confidence animated by a
strong past participant (who’s over 60!) who spoke of how when you have the
confidence in yourself and your words, people listen. But when you stumble and
doubt yourself, others will doubt you as well. After the women learned about
gender roles in Togo, how men and women are segregated in the society and why
it’s important to educate young girls equally with young boys. The afternoon
held the most emotionally difficult sessions of the conference: women’s rights
and sexual harassment. Often women in
Togo, including many of our participants, are ignorant of their rights and
these sessions open their eyes to the rights given them under Togolese law,
such as the right to inherit property and the right against domestic violence
and sexual harassment. While these sessions can be emotionally taxing as the
women share stories of the suffering women bear in their villages, they carry
the positive twist of introducing these women to the resources that exist in
their regions, such as the NGOs run by two of our Togolese counterparts.
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| PCVs Molly and Erin giving two of our participants face masks |
After the exhausting first day of
sessions, we gave the women a chance to relax by hosting a beauty night
organized by our Volunteer trainer Alison. Here we treated the women to face
masks, manicures and foot massages and took a couple hours to take care of
these women who do so much to take care of their families and communities every
day of their lives.
The second day of sessions focused
on women’s health issues such as family planning, sexual health, HIV and STI
prevention, breast cancer and disease prevention through sanitation. The aim is
to give the women the technical tools needed to inform others in their
communities and make advances for women’s and family health.
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| PCV Ruth co-lead a session on family planning |
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The final day brings it all full
circle by teaching the women how to transmit the information they have learned
to others in their communities. Here we organized a large gathering of
community members who came together to listen to the women and give them a time
to practice their presentation skills. The celebration coincided with
International Women’s Day and served the dual purpose of celebrating women and
giving them the confidence to teach others to create positive change in their
communities. We invited four keynote speakers to our event: a powerful
businesswoman named Madame Elino who started from humble beginnings but through
the support of the social services in Kara has grown into a household name, the
regional director of social action, the representative of the Prefet of Kara
and the Country Director of Peace Corps Togo. They spoke of the power of women
to change the world and of the importance of encouraging and celebrating women
in our communities.
After our keynote speakers
concluded, the participants took the stage and shared three skits that embodied
the themes they learned over the week. The first skit focused on financial
independence, falling in line with Togo’s national theme for the day “L’autonomisation économique de la femme:
c’est le progrès pour tout et pour toutes” and the women shared the
importance of creating small savings and loan groups in their villages. The
second skit focused on gender segregation and girls education, respecting the
United Nations theme for the day of “Women’s equality means progress for
everyone”. The final skit focused on family planning and educating our rural
women and the process and its benefits. After the presentation concluded, the
500+ attendees stayed for music and refreshments to celebrate this day in the
name of the women of Togo and the world who are fighting for their rights.
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| Participants and trainers preparing for the International Women's Day Event |
Needless to say, it was a stressful
but ultimately rewarding day. Managing teams of audio workers, setting up tents
and chairs, preparing the participants, coordinating the TV and radio crews and
keeping 500+ attendees from breaking into a full out mob was not easy (in fact,
I think we failed at the last part when the donated drinks came out. Be wearing
when giving out anything for free in Togo), but it was a remarkable learning
experience and I’ve been hearing positive remarks from all those involved ever
since. Even people from my village who were unable to attend the event heard
the radio broadcast and remarked on the success of the event.
After the heat of the event cooled
and the crowd dispersed, we shared our final meal with the participants, took
some time to share our thoughts and watched a slideshow put together by our
hardworking media coordinator PCV Andy. The conference was coming to a close.
In the morning the women would all depart for their villages to continue their
transformation and enlighten others in their villages.
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| Three of the participants presenting one of their skits for the population |
The morning witnessed a race to
collect all the contact information for the friends and resources the women
gained throughout the week, promises to keep in touch and keep the light
shining bright. I have confidence in these women, for they are my inspiration
and my hope for the future of Togo. Thank you to everyone who helped make this
event a reality, to all who donated, organized or trained, thank you.
In a couple months we will be
reconnecting with out participants on a local level, encouraging them to share
their successes and difficulties in sensitizing their communities in an effort
to create a local network of strong women who can rely on one another for
support. It is this type of networking between women and the men who support and encourage them that will create the change we hope to see in the world.
