DONOR FUNDS

While women survive on donor-based funding, they should unite to work together in income-generating activities that will support their own families. Donations should serve only as the foundation upon which their activities will be built. Suppose the donors decide to terminate their support? When a friend supplies you with fried fish every time you're hungry, that's fine. But unless you learn how this fish is obtained and fried, you're in trouble when the friend stops bringing supplies!

Women, let us face the realities of life and do something. We shall always be in bondage until we stand up by ourselves. This may be achieved through conferences, seminars and even by visiting each other's countries.

Suna, Kenya

THE GIRL-CHILD,

I want to congratulate and thank you for a job well done. Your objective of empowering women through information sharing has actually reached us.

A women's group called Bongkuitity of Roh-Vitangtaa-Kikaikom—a village in Bui Division, N.W. Province of Cameroon testifies to the attainment of this objective. Many people wonder at the group's cohesion, its achievements, but as their coordinator I know our source of power. Your magazine has gradually but steadily provided us information that helped and is still helping.

The recent information on the girl-child is one of those very revealing topics that help us to look closely at our own systems here from that perspective.

God bless you to hold fast to your objectives.

N.W. Province, Cameroon

WOMEN HELPING THEMSELVES

The report about Ka Patring, a widow, which appeared in Women in Action No. 2, 1996, p. 19, is very encouraging. Most women who rely on their husbands to be the sole breadwinners suffer extremely when they are widowed.

Ours is a self-help group of 35, including 16 who are homeless. We strive to make both ends meet through effective development programs, etc. We send out proposals to other organizations for their consideration and support where possible. A copy is enclosed for you, and please feel free to pass it on to whoever may be interested.

Our group is affiliated with the Orphanage Mission Organization which assists, advises and sponsors our development seminars on various issues relating to our concerns.

We would of course appreciate it if we can get in touch with women's associations worldwide for encouragement and exchange of ideas.

Suna, Kenya

MALE CONTRIBUTOR

I have encountered your very interesting and informative magazine Women in Action (No. 3, 1996) recently. It has helped me a lot in analysing the gender situation here in my country, Nepal.

I am a male involved in community development for 12 years now. I am seriously watching the gender issues these days as I am in favour of gender equity. Also I am participating in various movements on gender issues.

I would like to get your magazine very regularly as well as to contribute my experiences on the issues. So, please suggest how I should go ahead?

Kathmandu, Nepal

Editor: It pleases us to know that men (the more, the better) are acting on gender inequality. Please write to us about your experiences in community development in Nepal, especially on how men are either contributing to or discouraging the efforts of women to improve their situation.

YES TO SPIRITUALITY

Your Women in Action on spirituality is great to reflect on and work with.

Hamburg, Germany

PAULO FREIRE, 1921-1997

We were returning from Persepolis. We had participated in a World Literacy Congress organised by UNESCO. There, Paulo Freire had been awarded the annual Prize for Literacy. Paulo came away from Persepolis very hurt—and with good reason. When he was receiving his prize, the official Brazilian representative left the seminar in protest. While literacy workers from over 60 countries shared in Paulo's joy and happiness, the Brazilian Government, in the person of the Director of Mobral, officially spumed, in a shameful and ludicrous fashion, Paulo Freire's enormous and highly significant contribution to the process of literacy.

Sitting comfortably on the plane, we chatted, reminiscing about other, earlier encounters. Soon afterwards, our breakfast was served. Once again we shared the pleasure of a meal together. Suddenly Paulo picked up the Swissair menu and wrote some beautiful verses which he entitled 'An Obvious Song'. He dedicated it to me and we read it together.

Into those verses he poured his feelings, fears, doubts and hopes..'my eyes see what they have never seen before; my ears hear what they have never heard, my feet will learn the mysteries of the roads, I will mistrust those who speak words their lives do not speak. Nevertheless I will wait like the gardener who prepares the garden for the rose that will flower in spring'.

Freire was a teacher—an extraordinary teacher—not so much because of what he taught and what he wrote but rather because of his life and how he lived it: for his gentlesness, humanity, commitment and struggle for a more beautiful world, one that is more human and full of solidarity. That is why Paulo's life was full, daring and passionate, challenging and profoundly ethical.

We find Paulo's legacy as a human being and as an educator, summed up in his last book.

Pedagogy of Autonomy.

What makes a good educator today? Paulo Freire tells us: it is necessary, before all else, to respect and promote the autonomy of those being taught, in the belief that in so doing, the educator is forging his/ her own autonomy. To educate in, and for, autonomy demands risks; it demands accepting the new and rejecting any form of discrimination; it demands both cultural identity and the knowledge that we are historically conditioned beings; in V- short, it demands coherence and tolerance, freedom and authority, joy and hope, common sense and acknowledgement that we are incomplete beings.

Three ideas form the backbone of the pedagogical processes of autonomy. Firstly, one must be convinced that there can be no teaching without dissent: there is knowledge that is indispensable for life which must be taught and learned. Therefore teaching must be rigorously methodical and critical within an ethical and aesthetic framework.

Secondly, in order to be educational, teaching must go beyond the simple transfer of knowledge. Teaching becomes a key aspect of the educational process in so far as it contributes to the development of people's abilities.

The third aspect which gives teaching integrity has to do with professional competence, with generosity and commitment, with dialogue and love.

Francisco Gutierrez Perez is director of the Institute of the Pedagogy of Communication (ILPEC), Costa Rica.

Source: Action No. 197, June 1997