Impact First International

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Helping women in Guatemala to stop feeling unworthy

Hebe Llerena
Country Project Coordinator, Guatemala

Ana Loyda Hesse
Health Officer

It’s been almost two years since we first started our activities aiming at raising feelings of self-esteem among Mayan women living in rural areas of Guatemala and this time we’d like to share some of the challenges, struggles and achievements we’ve met along the way.

An initial study gave us a picture in April 2010 – and it was a bleak one. Why did women feel themselves so unworthy in their families and in their own lives? How come they did not know that they have basic rights? A time for serious questioning and action arrived right away: how could we tackle this situation? Where could we start? All we knew was that there are a lot of things to do if we are really to make a change and deliver something useful which could help rural women improve their lives.

We still remember how uncomfortable and suspicious many of the female microcredit clients used to feel at the beginning every time we dropped by their groups to deliver our training workshops on maternal and newborn health. We still remember those eyes and faces kind of asking us: what are you doing here? What are you talking about? Why do I have to waste my time listening to you? And they were absolutely right.

First, never before had they attended education sessions and training workshops of any kind.

Second, words like “self-esteem” and “rights” were so utterly unknown to them that those questions couldn’t feel any less alive.

What to do? For starters, it really surprised us to find that female microcredit clients did not know each other …not even the names of the other women in their groups!! How could this be? Aren’t microcredit group banks supposed to be based on trust? How can they trust somebody they don’t even know?

So we first started breaking the ice with some easy group dynamics and common Guatemalan games such as my favourite fruit, making boats, and gestures which allowed them to introduce themselves and share some of their likes and dislikes in life. Hopefully, these games helped all of us (microcredit clients and project team members) not only to know each others’ names, but most importantly to socialize and feel comfortable around each other.

Next, armed with pots, pans, chopping boards and other kitchen appliances and nutritional yet economic recipes we kick started our family and child nutrition sessions. These were much easier now, not controversial, and yet important, aiming to improve skills and understanding about a healthy and varied nutrition for the family and children.

Traditional Cakchiquel recipes including dobladas de chipilin, tortillas de mosh, torta española (if you don’t know, look them up, they’re yummy!) and others were prepared. Socializing with the women, sharing a good laugh and getting to know them better while starting the fire, preparing and sharing the meals certainly helped us gain acceptance, confidence and eventually trust and eased our work towards more complex topics such as self-esteem.

It really hit us hard to see women’s feelings of unworthiness in life and in society and to witness how this had been sadly and unfairly engraved within them for generations – many times to the extreme of adopting a passive attitude and just letting the injustice or damage happen to them.

Five basic and important beliefs had to be discussed and considered within our groups:

• a) a woman has a value of her own because she is a human being – no matter how stupid or useless or ignorant a husband, father or even a mother may say the woman/wife/daughter is,
• b) they themselves are the most important persons in their own lives – and not their children, husband, and family as they were always taught,
• c) women are not guilty for all the injustices that happen to them – no matter how hard a husband/father or mother may try to blame or accuse,
• d) women should love and accept themselves the way they are – and not feel shame about their ethnicity or colour of skin, and
• e) women should not repeat the same mistakes or mistreatments with their daughters and sons – no more damaging daughter’s and son’s self-esteem with comments like Stupid girl! You cannot do anything right!

After a number of sessions these concepts have started to really sink in, raise questions and stir new thoughts. This has allowed us the first step towards changing women’s’ inner “unworthiness chip” and building a more solid and empathic relationship with them, which enabled us to tackle more serious topics such as sexual and reproductive health (S&R) and family planning (FP).

We knew there were many misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding S&R and FP topics as they are considered “taboo” in many rural communities. We still remember how some of the women (and men) used to blush, feel ashamed, and look down when talking about reproductive systems and genitals. But images had to be displayed, organs had to be called by their names, and women and men had to know their own bodies correctly if we were to address misconceptions.

We had to strive hard to deliver clear, useful, true messages without hurting sensibilities of any kind. All of the FP methods were explained in detail and advantages and disadvantages clearly and easily spelled out so that each of the women and men could have an accurate idea of which method was best for them and their partner. Teaching with respect for our groups’ views and thoughts (no matter how inaccurate or outlandish they might have sounded to us at first) and with simple vocabulary eased the tension and allowed us to break through the resistance. Newly attained knowledge continues to be assessed and refreshed with dynamic techniques and materials.

We are currently focusing on respiratory and diarrheal diseases as they are the principal causes of death among children under five in these villages. Women and men learn how the disease or infection starts and develops and how it should be prevented or treated. Like with child nutrition, practical application of knowledge attained is always encouraged and demonstration of preparation of oral saline solutions at home was no exception.
As has been the case to date, all of our dynamics and learning methodologies (story telling, games) and training materials (puzzles, roulettes, drawings) are not only adapted to our groups’ knowledge and learning needs and interests, but always aiming to raise expectations and hunger for further learning and knowledge.

Watching the women feeling more assertive and confident of themselves is definitely our best prize so far. Hearing them say they are now aware of new information which they can fearlessly share with their daughters and granddaughters is, for us, truly inspiring.

Seeing Mayan women’s eagerness to learn more and more despite all of the other demands on their time and energy is also our most sincere call at work, as it makes us dream and believe how simple life and society could be if we were all to have the same freedoms and liberties.

2011 has been a year full of achievements that we could not have made without you.

Women and their families in the Dominican Republic have new knowledge and skills to run businesses and stay healthy.

In Peru our mobile clinics have given quality medical attention to tens of thousands living in remote villages.

And in Guatemala we have trained midwives to safely deliver newborns and have helped women to strengthen their own “micro” businesses for greater independence.

All of these are your successes as the supporters who sustain this vital work. So thank you.

But there have been challenges for us as well. During these tough economic times when the needs of women in the developing world are so great, donations have been harder to come by than ever before for us. If you can, at this critical time, please show your support for a woman in the Dominican Republic, Peru, or Guatemala as a present to someone who has helped you, or just as a general gift.

Thank you again for what you do for women and their communities. We at Impact First wish you a happy and safe holiday season and a wonderful 2012!

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Transparency?

The Ontario Council for International Cooperation (OCIC) (which, if you are involved in the non-profit sector as a student or professional, you need to become a member of!) recently asked me to write a description of some good practices at Impact First related to the Istanbul Principles on CSO Development Effectiveness.

These principles have been developed by Civil Society Organizations (a term we don’t hear too often in Canada but intending to refer to organizations like Impact First and many other types as well!). In particular, I was asked to write about what Impact First does with respect to the 5th Istanbul Principle – Transparency and Accountability.

Here was my first crack at it:

“This principal is key but one that many organizations continue to struggle with. If they tell you otherwise it may just mean they’re not very transparent! Transparency and accountability start within an organization. Everyone needs to be brought on to a more or less equal playing field. Your communications team needs to know the truth about the struggles you’re having with a certain project before they go out and talk to donors about it! Your field officers should know the truth about how things work at head office.

“This is not easy, and there is also the need for discretion and privacy. At the end of the day, knowledge and information need to be shared and not buried. At Impact First we, together with our partners, are constantly striving to improve our culture of learning and growth, to respond to community needs as well as critiques, and to admit our past mistakes so that we don’t repeat them.”

But that was way too long, since this needed to fit on a small banner for OCIC’s website.

Here was attempt #2:

“At Impact First we build transparency and accountability from within. Our staff and volunteers are entrusted both with information about our successes and about our short-comings. We work with our partners to ensure that the public, and especially our beneficiaries, can get an honest and well rounded understanding of what we do.”

There was lots more that I wanted to add to both of these descriptions though. They both weren’t able to convey very much and felt really limited.

OCIC suggested that we try again, but with something more specific to Impact First.

So I got asked a few questions to help me out:

1. “Our staff and volunteers are entrusted both with information about our successes and about our short-comings.”
a. How is this info shared? AGM/annual report/meetings/website/etc.? How often?
b. Do you have a formal structure/policy as to how this is all shared?
c. Do staff and volunteers participate in M&E?

2. “We work with our partners to ensure that the public, and especially our beneficiaries, can get an honest and well rounded understanding of what we do.”
a. Through what means?

Here were my thoughts:

“I have to say it’s a pretty tricky assignment to try to get an understanding of the concrete ways in which any NGO ensures transparency and accountability at a length that can fit on a graphic for a website! Maybe a more marketing-minded person would have an easier time with this than I do. But honestly, it is kind of ironic almost, because to me transparency means explaining the details and nuances of situations, not just the short ‘slogan’ or ‘sound bite’ that marketing folks are so good at. So this very format that is being used to share my comments goes against transparency in many ways!

1. Transparency among staff and volunteers isn’t hard for Impact First because we are so small. What would be hard would be keeping information secret! It is also my general philosophy that people need to learn from mistakes and that anyone volunteering or working with us should have that opportunity. So for example, if there’s a problem with one of our partners, I will let our volunteers know the basics about that situation just so that in their future careers they don’t repeat those problems or if those things arise they are better prepaired.

So basically the information sharing mechanisms are just informal conversations that happen as lessons arise from our work. There are no formal structures around this sharing since we are so small. There are policies but for our size of organization they aren’t really what drives transparency in practice, they just formalize our philosophies so that if there’s turnover the ‘culture’ of transparency won’t get lost.

2. We hold annual planning meetings for our projects in beneficiary communities to openly share information, get feedback, and orient future work.”

The process of deciding the final wording is still on-going. I am giving the poor folks at OCIC headaches by now I’m sure! But I thought, what better way to walk the talk of transparency than to throw these issues up on our blog and open them to your consideration.

So for now I’ll leave you with this:

What are transparency and accountability really about? How can non-profits make them happen in practice? What more would you like to see from Impact First in this regard? How can we do a better job at of embodying this principle?