Papua New Guinea
First one development scheme, then another. Cash crops tomorrow, but what about today? Women in one province of Papua New Guinea have had enough of experts' ideas on what their community needs. They know what the priority is — to grow more food.
Life changed dramatically for the people in Papua New Guinea's East Sepik province in 1967. They were grass country people, living in poor villages over flood waters for nine months of the year, subsisting on sago and fish. In 1967 the government resettled them onto hilly rainforested land — out of reach of the floods, but without their means of survival. For the people were not agriculturalists: turning over the soil was new to them. They could no longer fish nor collect sago. And there was little support to help them in their new way of life.
Some years later, the government introduced rubber as a cash crop. But this had problems too. Clearing large chunks of rainforest for the rubber had led to soil erosion. And what were the people to live on while the rubber trees matured? No provision was made. Malnutrition increased and the desperateness of the situation led to the formation of the Gavien Women's Development Group.
What the group felt very strongly about was the need for an integrated approach which had been so sorely overlooked by the previous government's attempts at development in the area. You cannot uproot people from one way of life and put them in another without giving them the help and means to adapt, went their reasoning. And you cannot introduce cash cropping without thinking out the implications for a community which is not able to produce its own food.
The Gavien women built up a lively network, devising ways to improve their food growing, planting large vegetable plots and fruit gardens as a clear signal of the importance of these over cash crops. But it didn't stop there: growing more food and balancing the diet with fruits and vegetables was backed up with nutrition and preventative health training so that women could safeguard themselves and their families from poverty's diseases. They educated leaders from other parts of the country too, as well as linking into a wider Pacific network of women's groups in the Pacific to learn how they tackled problems.
Government planners and development officers didn't take kindly to the women's initiative which they perceived as a threat to the efficiency of the cash-crop programme. But this made the women more determined to improve their status at the same time as they improved the amount and quality of food grown.
Food growing was only the starting point: the women learned more than how to grow vegetables and care for their fruit bushes. They acquired a sense of their value and learned to assert what they thought was important. Some of them learnt to drive, to mix cement, to process foods and construct large buildings, like the hau meris (women's meeting houses) which by equaling the scale of the men's traditional sacred spirit houses became a tangible sign of the women's status.
It wasn't to be all toil for the Gavien women. They gave thought to making their work enjoyable. There were large social events to celebrate International Women's Day and World Food Day and other activities like drama, song-writing and films: much-needed social rewards in a life of hard work and few pleasures.
Adapted from 'Women's Group in Papua New Guinea: Shedding the Legacy of Drop Scones and Embroidered Pillowcases' by Wandy Lee, in Community Development Journal, Vol.20, No.3, 1985.