DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Training for women at local level in developing countries
   • What training programmes are available?
   • How should these be improved?
   • What additional training facilities are required?
   • How can experiences and resources related to training programmes be shared?
   • How should courses be followed up?
   • How should lobbying to improve the quantity and quality of women's training be organised?
2. Training of extension workers and volunteers
   • What training programmes are available?
   • How should these be improved?
   • How can experiences and resources related to training programmes be shared?
   • How should courses be followed up?
   • How should lobbying to improve the quantity and quality of training courses be organised?
3. General staff training and consciousness raising
   • What efforts have been made to raise staff consciousness and provide training courses related to women in development?
   • How successful have these initiatives been?
   • How could their effectiveness be improved?
   • How can experiences and resources related to training courses be shared?
   • How should courses be followed up?
   • How should lobbying be organised to improve the quantity and quality of staff training in relation to women in development?

 

INTRODUCTIONS TO WORKSHOP 6

MAKING WOMEN CENTRAL TO TRAINING PROGRAMMES

Lucy Mboma (Tanzania)

There are some important points I would like most of us to address our attention to. Firstly, what do we mean by development? The developed and developing countries seem to have different understandings of development. I would like to look at development as a many-sided process which involves both material and non-material things that everyone is supposed to enjoy in the society. We should start from an individual and then integrate that individual into the whole society. Development must be seen in terms of skills, capacity, freedom, creativity, discipline, responsibility, and finally the material aspects, in relation to men and women in general.

We must make sure that all the things mentioned should also be central concerns to women. How can skills help women in developing themselves? How are they able to assist women in project identification, planning, monitoring and evaluation? It is important to link these with development and at the same time to train women in their development.

However, it is not complete to have training alone. We have to consider the problems of education as well. These two things are always interrelated. You can't have skills if you don't have education. Skills would help to attain what we are thinking of.

It's a well-known fact that women in developing countries are doing much of the work. We should identify the training needed in different countries, be it a developing or developed country, for the development of rural women.

In Tanzania, up till 1961, the education system was not geared to the majority of Tanzanians. Not many women had the opportunity of having an education since the economy was of a plantation nature where manual labour is of the utmost importance. Men were trained so that they could finally be absorbed into this particular setup. The few women who managed to go to school were mainly trained for domestic subjects. They were expected to end up in the kitchen. That is the end of it. The system remained more or less the same up to 1967. The same policy of training was practised. There were some minor changes; for instance, the intake of students was increased both for women and men, but the same old structure was implemented. In 1967, a change in general policy took place in Tanzania. The government, for the first time, gave a clear policy on education. Tanzania started to talk about education for the majority. The number of students increased again. In spite of all these changes, the recognition in terms of the role and position given to women as far as education was concerned was minimum. The status of Tanzanian women was not much respected. We urged the government to take up the problem seriously through women's groups. Facilities should be increased and above all some traditional, cultural values which are hampering the progress of women should be changed.

 

AnnMarie Beurlink (The Netherlands)

An example of general staff training and consciousness raising inside Novib, Dutch development agency.

In March 1983 a staff training was organised on Women and Development for Novib's project staff and some staff members of the development education and the administrative department.

The objectives of these study-days were:

1. to raise awareness of the importance of specific attention for the possible effects of development projects on the position of women,
2. to find ways how to integrate this in the daily project work of staff members,
3. eventually to adjust working-instruments.

To reach these aims, several activities were carried out:

A theoretical introduction

For this aim several articles had been read before the workshop started. Rhoda Reddock (Trinindad) opened the study days with her theoretical introduction on 'Women in development; critical and historical perspectives'.

Stereotype reactions and possible resistance to raising the women's issue in development matters.

Jose van Hussen (Holland) gave an introduction on Development workers and women: "Stereotype Reactions". With very vivid examples she described stereotype reactions and prejudices such as:

1. "The enormous financial and economical problems developing countries face are much more important than the improvement of the position of women."
2. "Oh yes, we do something on women. Look, we support for example a sewing course for women in Mali."
3. "We are only interested in the poorest part of the world population and not specifically in women. So automatically our programmes will reach women as well."

After having refuted these stereotype answers of development staff on the question of the role of women in development processes, she made a plea to look for more counterpart organisations in the third world which consciously try to involve women in development, and which are characterized by more women with decision making power in their structures.

Some practical examples.

Case studies from different parts of the world were presented by students from the women's studies course at the Institute for Social Sciences in The Hague. This included an introduction to 'Women's Participation in Development Programmes in Latin America, with special emphasis on Peru", which gave a typology of different development projects according to women's involvement. They distinguished the following six categories:

1. General development programmes without any attention for women. Negative influences were given of land reform programmes, where women lost control over their land, lost the right to vote in cooperatives, etc.
2. General development programmes with a little bit of attention on the sideline, mainly according to traditional roles. An example was given of 'mothercentres' linked to a rural development programme.
3. General programmes which try to integrate women's interests completely. Problems for women to participate in training programmes were given and examples of how to solve these.
4. Specific women's programmes via the family orientation. An example was given of the negative results when development planners take the family as a whole unit , without taking into consideration the power relations within the family.
5. Specific women's projects, or according to class-lines, or according to traditional gender lines.
6. Feministic womens projects. The importance of autonomous organisation of women was stressed.

Studying the check list on 'Women and Development'.

The exercise was carried out in small working groups. The general opinion was that the list was very complete but for practical purposes was considered too complicated; too much information is requested. Nevertheless in general it is seen a useful guideline for the check points when analysing and judging projects.

An intellectual exercise.

In three working groups we worked different case studies from the three continents. Two general integrated rural development programmes from Africa and Asia and three specific women programmes from Latin America were analysed with the intention of measuring with the use of the check list the possible effects of these programmes on the position and role of women. It was for us alarming to ascertain the almost complete lack of information on the position if women in the two rural development projects, which made it for the working groups almost impossible to judge the possible effects of these projects on women. For the women's programmes the situation was of course different. Nevertheless here as well, baseline facts on the involved women were too scarce to implement the checklist.

Conclusions and recommendations.

1. The meeting concluded that Novib should pay more attention in its project work to the position and situation of women and the influence of women on development.
2. It is considered very important to support women's emancipation organisations in the third world.
3. However, Novib should be more aware of possible effects of general development programmes on the situation of women.

Evaluation

The Novib staff members who initially had pressed much for the need of these study days, were very happy with the results of this staff training. However, we analysed some learning points of this experience, to be taken into account whenever we or other organisations should repeat staff training like this.

In the first place the deliverance of theoretical and practical information had been sufficient and was considered very important, interesting and valuable. In this light it is remarkable that criticisms were heard about the introduction of existing resistance, because the resistance still exists!

The necessity to mobilize all theoretical information in support of the second aim of this staff training (to operationalize the first objective) was not very successful, due to the fact that we overestimated the capacity of the participants to be able to work immediately with this 'new' information. Besides this, basic information on the women's situation in the studied projects was lacking. A very eye-opening learning point indeed!

The follow-up of these study days is a continuous ongoing process. Since then, for example, a policy paper on Women and Development has been produced in which the departments of Novib are recommended to give special emphasis to women's issues and is being implemented on several points. Inside Novib a women's group of representatives of the different departments, is functioning for coordinating the different activities by and on women. Although a lot remains to be done, this is a very stimulating process for all of us involved.

 

REPORT OF WORKSHOP 6

MAKING WOMEN CENTRAL TO TRAINING PROGRAMMES

Rapporteur: Nancy Benson

TRAINING

Up to now men have been planning and directing institutions. To change this, women must have power. Therefore training must give them this power - to influence institutions and move in new directions.

Since the aim of training is to develop society, it should:

• be practically oriented
• liberate our thinking
• raise consciousness
• help develop the capacities women have
• present new alternatives

Women themselves should decide what training they want.

Up to now, much training has been manipulative. It has re-inforced traditional patterns for women - activities like home economics, etc. In both the North and South it has often been irrelevant.

Training should be of two kinds:

1. Coming together as a group. Awareness and communication and dynamics of group action. This would involve discussing the problems of women (especially poor women), dicussing ways in which we are exploited, what we want to accomplish, learning to speak in public. In other words it should raise the consciousness of women and develop the capacities they have to communicate and organize.
2. Technical training. After a woman realizes her important role in society and develops her capacities in group dynamics, she can then search for the technical training she wants and needs. This training will be supportive to the first kind of training mentioned above.

Training women is essential because they are the basic carriers of development. A woman's influence has a multiplier effect - on her family, on the community, then on society in general.

Some difficulties in training women:

1. How can they find the time to participate in training programs?
2. Will their families allow them to go? Sometimes wife-beating happens when women want to have such experiences.

To solve this, we can:

1. Involve men in training programs.
2. Help them see the benefits to them of having their wives participate.

Strategies we suggest:

• Train men as well as women.
• Women who are trained should cooperate with mixed groups, using the positive factors that exist in these groups. We should look for mechanisms for setting up integrated activities to effectuate social change.
• Training for people in developed countries - to liberate them and to inform them.
• Sexism should be fought against in schools and development education.
• Establish and evaluate training programmes based on whether they create new attitudes and new mentalities that lead to 'new women'.
• Education at school isn't enough. Alternative education is necessary
• Re-thinking about co-education. It doesn't necessarily benefit young women. Sometimes it means they have less chance to play leadership roles. Teaching is often aimed at the boys.
• Teachers should be trained too! And guidance counselors, as they often pass on stereotyped and traditional concepts.
• When women's groups provide resource people for male-dominated groups, it should not be done gratuitously. This is exploitation: women doing most of the work again, and not being paid for it.
• Would it be useful to publish a manual of training programmes? Would it be useful even if programmes are not always transferable? They could be adapted, and one could learn about other societies in reading about them.