We were on the deck of our boat, moored near a public dock in downtown Dhaka, Bangladesh. A ferry pulled alongside us, and we watched as passengers got on and off. Of course they watched us too (foreigners are quite rare in Bangladesh).
I suppose I may have looked curious to these two woman, but probably no more so than they appeared to me.
Look at the curve of the white metal port that they are standing in, and then look for complimentary curves in the rest of the image; faces, glasses, shawl...
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Available data on health, nutrition, education, and economic performance indicated
Available data on health, nutrition, education, and economic performance indicated that in the 1980s the status of women in Bangladesh remained considerably inferior to that of men. Women, in custom and practice, remained subordinate to men in almost all aspects of their lives; greater autonomy was the privilege of the rich or the necessity of the very poor. Most women's lives remained centered on their traditional roles, and they had limited access to markets, productive services, education, health care, and local government. This lack of opportunities contributed to high fertility patterns, which diminished family well-being, contributed to the malnourishment and generally poor health of children, and frustrated educational and other national development goals. In fact, acute poverty at the margin appeared to be hitting hardest at women. As long as women's access to health care, education, and training remained limited, prospects for improved productivity among the female population remained poor.
About 82 percent of women lived in rural areas in the late 1980s. The majority of rural women, perhaps 70 percent, were in small cultivator, tenant, and landless households; many worked as laborers part time or seasonally, usually in post-harvest activities, and received payment in kind or in meager cash wages. Another 20 percent, mostly in poor landless households, depended on casual labor, gleaning, begging, and other irregular sources of income; typically, their income was essential to household survival. The remaining 10 percent of women were in households mainly in the professional, trading, or large-scale landowning categories, and they usually did not work outside the home.
The economic contribution of women was substantial but largely unacknowledged. Women in rural areas were responsible for most of the post-harvest work, which was done in the chula, and for keeping livestock, poultry, and small gardens. Women in cities relied on domestic and traditional jobs, but in the 1980s they increasingly worked in manufacturing jobs, especially in the readymade garment industry. Those with more education worked in government, health care, and teaching, but their numbers remained very small. Continuing high rates of population growth and the declining availability of work based in the chula meant that more women sought employment outside the home. Accordingly, the female labor force participation rate doubled between 1974 and 1984, when it reached nearly 8 percent. Female wage rates in the 1980s were low, typically ranging between 20 and 30 percent of male wage rates.
About 82 percent of women lived in rural areas in the late 1980s. The majority of rural women, perhaps 70 percent, were in small cultivator, tenant, and landless households; many worked as laborers part time or seasonally, usually in post-harvest activities, and received payment in kind or in meager cash wages. Another 20 percent, mostly in poor landless households, depended on casual labor, gleaning, begging, and other irregular sources of income; typically, their income was essential to household survival. The remaining 10 percent of women were in households mainly in the professional, trading, or large-scale landowning categories, and they usually did not work outside the home.
The economic contribution of women was substantial but largely unacknowledged. Women in rural areas were responsible for most of the post-harvest work, which was done in the chula, and for keeping livestock, poultry, and small gardens. Women in cities relied on domestic and traditional jobs, but in the 1980s they increasingly worked in manufacturing jobs, especially in the readymade garment industry. Those with more education worked in government, health care, and teaching, but their numbers remained very small. Continuing high rates of population growth and the declining availability of work based in the chula meant that more women sought employment outside the home. Accordingly, the female labor force participation rate doubled between 1974 and 1984, when it reached nearly 8 percent. Female wage rates in the 1980s were low, typically ranging between 20 and 30 percent of male wage rates.
Available data on health, nutrition, education, and economic performance indicated
Available data on health, nutrition, education, and economic performance indicated that in the 1980s the status of women in Bangladesh remained considerably inferior to that of men. Women, in custom and practice, remained subordinate to men in almost all aspects of their lives; greater autonomy was the privilege of the rich or the necessity of the very poor. Most women's lives remained centered on their traditional roles, and they had limited access to markets, productive services, education, health care, and local government. This lack of opportunities contributed to high fertility patterns, which diminished family well-being, contributed to the malnourishment and generally poor health of children, and frustrated educational and other national development goals. In fact, acute poverty at the margin appeared to be hitting hardest at women. As long as women's access to health care, education, and training remained limited, prospects for improved productivity among the female population remained poor.
About 82 percent of women lived in rural areas in the late 1980s. The majority of rural women, perhaps 70 percent, were in small cultivator, tenant, and landless households; many worked as laborers part time or seasonally, usually in post-harvest activities, and received payment in kind or in meager cash wages. Another 20 percent, mostly in poor landless households, depended on casual labor, gleaning, begging, and other irregular sources of income; typically, their income was essential to household survival. The remaining 10 percent of women were in households mainly in the professional, trading, or large-scale landowning categories, and they usually did not work outside the home.
The economic contribution of women was substantial but largely unacknowledged. Women in rural areas were responsible for most of the post-harvest work, which was done in the chula, and for keeping livestock, poultry, and small gardens. Women in cities relied on domestic and traditional jobs, but in the 1980s they increasingly worked in manufacturing jobs, especially in the readymade garment industry. Those with more education worked in government, health care, and teaching, but their numbers remained very small. Continuing high rates of population growth and the declining availability of work based in the chula meant that more women sought employment outside the home. Accordingly, the female labor force participation rate doubled between 1974 and 1984, when it reached nearly 8 percent. Female wage rates in the 1980s were low, typically ranging between 20 and 30 percent of male wage rates.
About 82 percent of women lived in rural areas in the late 1980s. The majority of rural women, perhaps 70 percent, were in small cultivator, tenant, and landless households; many worked as laborers part time or seasonally, usually in post-harvest activities, and received payment in kind or in meager cash wages. Another 20 percent, mostly in poor landless households, depended on casual labor, gleaning, begging, and other irregular sources of income; typically, their income was essential to household survival. The remaining 10 percent of women were in households mainly in the professional, trading, or large-scale landowning categories, and they usually did not work outside the home.
The economic contribution of women was substantial but largely unacknowledged. Women in rural areas were responsible for most of the post-harvest work, which was done in the chula, and for keeping livestock, poultry, and small gardens. Women in cities relied on domestic and traditional jobs, but in the 1980s they increasingly worked in manufacturing jobs, especially in the readymade garment industry. Those with more education worked in government, health care, and teaching, but their numbers remained very small. Continuing high rates of population growth and the declining availability of work based in the chula meant that more women sought employment outside the home. Accordingly, the female labor force participation rate doubled between 1974 and 1984, when it reached nearly 8 percent. Female wage rates in the 1980s were low, typically ranging between 20 and 30 percent of male wage rates.
The Women
The Women
This is one of a series of small portfolios taken from my January, 2005 shoot in Bangladesh.
These photographs will form part of a gallery exhibition in Toronto in March, 2005,
together with a collector's print portfolio, which will be made available at that time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I selected these three photographs for use here before thinking about what I wanted to say about them. What I realized then was that in each one the woman's faces are either obscured, or turned away.
This wasn't intentional, and I certainly took quite a few straightforward photographs of woman's faces while in Bangladesh. I also found that everyone there, including woman, were quite open to having their photographs taken. More often than not it was hard to prevent them from smiling or waving, rather than have them put off by being the subject of one of my candid moments.
So why did I select these three images?
I think because of their enigmatic character. In each of these photographs we are presented with a bit of a mystery. Who are these people? What are they doing? And, why? It's that characteristic that can make photographs of people most appealing, and I've explored this aspect of photographing pe
This is one of a series of small portfolios taken from my January, 2005 shoot in Bangladesh.
These photographs will form part of a gallery exhibition in Toronto in March, 2005,
together with a collector's print portfolio, which will be made available at that time.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I selected these three photographs for use here before thinking about what I wanted to say about them. What I realized then was that in each one the woman's faces are either obscured, or turned away.
This wasn't intentional, and I certainly took quite a few straightforward photographs of woman's faces while in Bangladesh. I also found that everyone there, including woman, were quite open to having their photographs taken. More often than not it was hard to prevent them from smiling or waving, rather than have them put off by being the subject of one of my candid moments.
So why did I select these three images?
I think because of their enigmatic character. In each of these photographs we are presented with a bit of a mystery. Who are these people? What are they doing? And, why? It's that characteristic that can make photographs of people most appealing, and I've explored this aspect of photographing pe
Once a group is formed, its members elect a leader and a treasurer who deposits
Once a group is formed, its members elect a leader and a treasurer who deposits their savings in a joint account. Individual members may only be able to save about two taka (one cent) a week, yet the members of Banchte Shekha have saved a total of more than thirty million taka in this way. Members can take loans from the group savings for emergency, personal, or business reasons. The group approves the loans, which are given at no interest and with no set payback schedule. Nevertheless the default rate is only one percent.
The groups meet weekly to talk, work together, participate in training sessions, and make decisions about what they will do with savings or any money generated by their agricultural, craft, and small trade projects. The income from these projects is not large, but in a country where the per capita income is $220 a year, it is significant. A 1988 study by sociologist Monawar Sultana found that members were earning up to 700 taka (approx. $15) a month, and that, in some families, these earnings represented fifty percent of the total family income. Where the women are the sole wage earners, these earnings may be all the family has to survive on.
Banchte Shekha offers members a practical, basic education that focuses first on empowerment and income-generating skills, then on legal literacy, health issues, and family planning. In Gomes' pragmatic idealism, a woman who can create her own job and feed herself and her family is an educated woman. She is disdainful of people who emerge from higher education with no job and no idea of how to take care of themselves. She also has no use for education programs aimed at the poor that do not provide the knowledge and skills that they need to survive.
Dissatisfied with the teaching materials that were available for adults, Gomes has created her own: songs, plays, posters, and books that convey Banchte Shekha's message. Reading and writing are important, says Gomes, but not as important as eating. Not as important as staying alive and understanding that you are not powerless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The road to the village of Chadpur is a rutted dirt track that divides row upon row of bright green rice paddies. It ends in a grove of banana trees about fifty yards from the scattering of bamboo and thatch houses.
The most prominent building in the village is a sturdy bamboo pavillion. It was built by Chadpur's Banchte Shekha group and sits on land that the women purchased with pooled savings from their cottage industries.
About forty Banchte Shekha members are gathered in the pavillion to welcome Angela Gomes and some visitors from the United States. Their talk is lively as they settle on the floor with their embroidery.
The arrival of the strangers attracts a curious crowd of villagers: women with bright saris pulled protectively around their heads; a few men in lungis who stand on the edge of the crowd; and the usual army of brown-eyed children who gather close around, gaping and laughing.
The groups meet weekly to talk, work together, participate in training sessions, and make decisions about what they will do with savings or any money generated by their agricultural, craft, and small trade projects. The income from these projects is not large, but in a country where the per capita income is $220 a year, it is significant. A 1988 study by sociologist Monawar Sultana found that members were earning up to 700 taka (approx. $15) a month, and that, in some families, these earnings represented fifty percent of the total family income. Where the women are the sole wage earners, these earnings may be all the family has to survive on.
Banchte Shekha offers members a practical, basic education that focuses first on empowerment and income-generating skills, then on legal literacy, health issues, and family planning. In Gomes' pragmatic idealism, a woman who can create her own job and feed herself and her family is an educated woman. She is disdainful of people who emerge from higher education with no job and no idea of how to take care of themselves. She also has no use for education programs aimed at the poor that do not provide the knowledge and skills that they need to survive.
Dissatisfied with the teaching materials that were available for adults, Gomes has created her own: songs, plays, posters, and books that convey Banchte Shekha's message. Reading and writing are important, says Gomes, but not as important as eating. Not as important as staying alive and understanding that you are not powerless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The road to the village of Chadpur is a rutted dirt track that divides row upon row of bright green rice paddies. It ends in a grove of banana trees about fifty yards from the scattering of bamboo and thatch houses.
The most prominent building in the village is a sturdy bamboo pavillion. It was built by Chadpur's Banchte Shekha group and sits on land that the women purchased with pooled savings from their cottage industries.
About forty Banchte Shekha members are gathered in the pavillion to welcome Angela Gomes and some visitors from the United States. Their talk is lively as they settle on the floor with their embroidery.
The arrival of the strangers attracts a curious crowd of villagers: women with bright saris pulled protectively around their heads; a few men in lungis who stand on the edge of the crowd; and the usual army of brown-eyed children who gather close around, gaping and laughing.
Gomes introduces the visitors and talks to the women about their work.
Gomes introduces the visitors and talks to the women about their work. She describes the accomplishments of the group-how they have worked together to learn 'to survive their lives.' "Today," she says, "these women know they have value."
In Chadpur the women's main projects are doing embroidery and casting concrete latrines. Use of the latrines, Gomes explains, can prevent seventy-five different diseases.
The group has decided to perform a play for the visitors. Several women hang a sari across the back of the pavillion and, laughing, disappear behind it. The women on the floor move to create an open space.
Suddenly the actors emerge, transformed into village characters by a few twists of their saris and a bit of charcoal and powder. The crowd of villagers pushes closer in anticipation.
"Ah-ee! Ah-ee!" The story begins with the shrieks and wails of a young wife who is being beaten by her mother-in-law. She can never do anything right. Her husband wants more dowry from her family, but her father has already sold his land to get her a husband. He has nothing more. The village moneylender tells the husband that, for a small fee, he could easily find him another younger, wealthier wife. So the wife is thrown out. Abandoned.
The story is a familiar and ancient one, and everyone laughs at the women's lively portrayals of the evil moneylender, the arrogant husband, the cruel mother-in-law.
But in scene two, a new figure emerges. A paralegal from Banchte Shekha explains to the wife that what her husband is doing is illegal. He cannot ask for dowry or abandon her without support. She can take him to court.
Together they confront the husband's family with the threat of a lawsuit.
Suddenly, it is all a misunderstanding! They love the young wife very much! Nothing could make them happier than to have her back! And so the wife and husband are reunited.
The audience claps and cheers. The eyes of the young girls are especially intent as they watch their mothers and sisters and aunts-women who once seldom left their homes-bowing to the large crowd.
After the performance, the women quickly resettle themselves and turn to the visitors. They have shared the story of their lives, now they want information in return.
"What is it like for women in your country?" they ask. "Are women tortured there too? Do women go to school? Do you have divorce? Can you inherit?" They lean forward eagerly, awaiting the answers.
"Some things are better," says one of the visitors, "but in many ways we have exactly the same problems. Women are still not treated equally. Many are still beaten and abused."
The women nod knowingly as they discuss this news among themselves.
It is time to go. Angela Gomes asks the women to join her in a song she has taught them. It is a song the visitors know too.
"We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day.
"Women shall be free, women shall be free, women shall be free someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that women shall be free someday."
In Chadpur the women's main projects are doing embroidery and casting concrete latrines. Use of the latrines, Gomes explains, can prevent seventy-five different diseases.
The group has decided to perform a play for the visitors. Several women hang a sari across the back of the pavillion and, laughing, disappear behind it. The women on the floor move to create an open space.
Suddenly the actors emerge, transformed into village characters by a few twists of their saris and a bit of charcoal and powder. The crowd of villagers pushes closer in anticipation.
"Ah-ee! Ah-ee!" The story begins with the shrieks and wails of a young wife who is being beaten by her mother-in-law. She can never do anything right. Her husband wants more dowry from her family, but her father has already sold his land to get her a husband. He has nothing more. The village moneylender tells the husband that, for a small fee, he could easily find him another younger, wealthier wife. So the wife is thrown out. Abandoned.
The story is a familiar and ancient one, and everyone laughs at the women's lively portrayals of the evil moneylender, the arrogant husband, the cruel mother-in-law.
But in scene two, a new figure emerges. A paralegal from Banchte Shekha explains to the wife that what her husband is doing is illegal. He cannot ask for dowry or abandon her without support. She can take him to court.
Together they confront the husband's family with the threat of a lawsuit.
Suddenly, it is all a misunderstanding! They love the young wife very much! Nothing could make them happier than to have her back! And so the wife and husband are reunited.
The audience claps and cheers. The eyes of the young girls are especially intent as they watch their mothers and sisters and aunts-women who once seldom left their homes-bowing to the large crowd.
After the performance, the women quickly resettle themselves and turn to the visitors. They have shared the story of their lives, now they want information in return.
"What is it like for women in your country?" they ask. "Are women tortured there too? Do women go to school? Do you have divorce? Can you inherit?" They lean forward eagerly, awaiting the answers.
"Some things are better," says one of the visitors, "but in many ways we have exactly the same problems. Women are still not treated equally. Many are still beaten and abused."
The women nod knowingly as they discuss this news among themselves.
It is time to go. Angela Gomes asks the women to join her in a song she has taught them. It is a song the visitors know too.
"We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that we shall overcome some day.
"Women shall be free, women shall be free, women shall be free someday. O, deep in my heart, I do believe, that women shall be free someday."
As a grassroots organization by, for, and of poor women, Banchte Shekha is unusual,
As a grassroots organization by, for, and of poor women, Banchte Shekha is unusual, if not unique. Development organizations in Bangladesh are usually founded by the educated elite, and even those targeted at women are most often run by men. Long-time friend and colleague Shahjahan Kabir attributes Gomes' success with Banchte Shekha to fact that she is a village woman herself. "She is one of them," he says. "She lives with them and she speaks their language."
Banchte Shekha embodies Gomes' belief that respect and empowerment begin at home. That means not just in the home, or in the village, but also within the organization. The philosophy of the organization is embodied in the autonomy of group members and groups, as well as by policies such as the requirement that each staff person must do at least one hour of manual labor every day.
Although the leadership of Banchte Shekha is no longer exclusively women, the majority of field positions are still held by experienced women members, and Gomes has made a point of bringing village women up into key positions.
Each of the major programs of Banchte Shekha has grown out of the felt needs of the members. They usually began in an ad hoc fashion.
The legal assistance program, for example, has its origins in early confrontations between members and other villagers, usually husbands. If a man beat his wife, he might find himself surrounded by thirty or forty angry Banchte Shekha women who would gather to publicly denounce him. Often they would make him sign a paper saying that he would not harm his wife again. A man who tried to desert or divorce his wife, or take a second wife, had to contend with Banchte Shekha members who were supported not only by group strength, but a knowledge of the law.
In 1987 Banchte Shekha decided to launch a village-based paralegal program, and, with support from The Asia Foundation, this Legal Aid Cell has become one of the most innovative paralegal programs in the country. It is also the only one run entirely by women.
The volunteer paralegals are village women who receive training in Muslim family law on dowry, the marriage system, legal divorce, and inheritance. These paralegals provide information to members and other villagers about their rights, and they participate in the shalish, the village form of mediation in Bangladesh.
Until recently, women were not represented at a shalish, even when their own future was at stake. Their male relatives were supposed to represent them, and all the decisions were made by the village men. Banchte Shekha's paralegal program has helped change that.
Three hundred and fifty women have been trained so far as paralegals. They work under the direction of one of the earliest Banchte Shekha members, Rokeya Sattar, herself a village woman who was married at thirteen and abandoned at twenty-two with her four children.
The paralegals have proven to be very effective. By July 1991, they had settled 2,119 disputes at the village level and effected 2,382 marriages without dowry. Attorneys who have evaluated the program have been struck by the poise and confidence of the women as they put their cases before the shalish or hold their own in difficult negotiations.
The legal program has been further strengthened by Asia Foundation support that gives the women the money and the clout to say that they will take a case to court and litigate if mediation fails. In the first four years of the program they have won 278 court cases.
The Mother and Child Health Project has its roots in the early days of Banchte Shekha when Gomes would go to hospitals and plead with the nuns to give her free medicine for village children.
Dr. James Ross, a former program officer with the Ford Foundation, says that when Banchte Shekha approached them in 1987 about funding a primary health care program, one of the things that really excited him about the project was their intent to recruit the health care workers from their own membership.
Initially Ford supported the training of nine women as paramedics. Today the program includes not only paid paramedics, but also more than 100 volunteer health workers-village women who teach members about nutrition, safe water and sanitation, family planning, and prenatal and child care. With the support of regional doctors and the paramedics, the health workers provide routine medical services, such as the distribution of vitamin A.
Village midwives are also offered training as traditional birth attendants (TBAs). According to Banchte Shekha program officer Anup Saha, "Before the TBA training, village midwives followed traditional practices, such as witholding food from the mother and the baby after the delivery. We teach them how to manage a normal delivery and ensure breast feeding, and we provide medical support and advice if they need it." Some 200 women have completed the TBA training.
The Ford Foundation has also capitalized a revolving loan fund that helps women get started with income-generating projects. A woman may request fingerling grass carp, for example, and, after she raises and sells the fish, she repays Banchte Shekha in taka.
Funds generated in this way have been used for a variety of projects, including the purchase of the organization's compound and demonstration farm in Jessore.
The demonstration farm is an important center for training in environmentally sound agricultural methods and income-generating activities. Produce from the farm feeds the staff and as many as 120 women a day who come there for training and refuge.
The manager of the farm is Manowara "Dolly" Begum. An illiterate woman who was divorced when her family could not meet her husband's demands for dowry, she came to Gomes and said she would do anything if she could stay at the Banchte Shekha compound. Gomes trained her to help take care of the cows, and she has now risen to a management position and runs the livestock breeding and production program.
"She is an illiterate woman, but she is educated," says Gomes emphatically. "She can take care of herself. The money she brings in from the farm pays the salaries of the professional staff here."
Farm profits from crops such as fodder also fund scholarships for village girls to attend secondary school and college.
Gomes is particularly proud of this next generation. "They are the ones who will become our leaders," she says. "The mothers, they can only go so far because of the disadvantages of their lives. But their children can do anything now."
In the spring of 1994, Gomes realized another goal: the opening of Banchte Shekha's own training center at the compound in Jessore. In a country where a tin roof is a status symbol, this complex of two-story brick buildings rising out of the red mud is a dramatic illustration of how far Banchte Shekha has come.
Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the new center will not only serve members, but will also provide a place where representatives from government and other organizations can learn what has made Banchte Shekha a success.
Operating a facility of this size-and the budget it requires-has necessitated some changes. In the past year the staff has increased by twenty-five percent to 261 people. Now, in addition to the group organizers, there are field supervisors and area managers who oversee all the activities in a specific geographic area. At the compound there are college-educated, English-speaking accountants and lawyers and secretaries putting in their one-hour-a-day of manual labor alongside trainees from the villages and the older staff.
Despite its rapid growth and the inevitable expansion of management-and management problems-Banchte Shekha remains true to Gomes' original vision.
"What's important to me is that Banchte Shekha is a movement, more than just a development project," says Nick Langton, the Asia Foundation's representative in Bangladesh. "It existed before any funders came along, and it would continue to exist-although on a smaller scale-without us. If you go out and talk to women in these groups, you get a very definite sense that they have been empowered, that they are women making decisions who would not have been making decisions before."
NORAD's Reidar Kvam agrees. He sees Banchte Shekha as a successful working model for other groups.
"This is an example of what woman leaders can achieve in this country," he says. "I think they have been able to demonstrate to a larger audience that there are strong, capable woman leaders here, and that they are addressing issues of concern with an impact even beyond their target organization."
Gomes hopes Banchte Shekha will continue to grow and that other organizations will learn from their experience.
"We have never claimed that this is the only approach to development," she says. "Certainly there may be other ways. The problems of poor women in Bangladesh have been centuries in the making. By comparision, eighteen years is not a long time. But every day is a new day. We have to be creative to cope with the changes it brings."
Banchte Shekha embodies Gomes' belief that respect and empowerment begin at home. That means not just in the home, or in the village, but also within the organization. The philosophy of the organization is embodied in the autonomy of group members and groups, as well as by policies such as the requirement that each staff person must do at least one hour of manual labor every day.
Although the leadership of Banchte Shekha is no longer exclusively women, the majority of field positions are still held by experienced women members, and Gomes has made a point of bringing village women up into key positions.
Each of the major programs of Banchte Shekha has grown out of the felt needs of the members. They usually began in an ad hoc fashion.
The legal assistance program, for example, has its origins in early confrontations between members and other villagers, usually husbands. If a man beat his wife, he might find himself surrounded by thirty or forty angry Banchte Shekha women who would gather to publicly denounce him. Often they would make him sign a paper saying that he would not harm his wife again. A man who tried to desert or divorce his wife, or take a second wife, had to contend with Banchte Shekha members who were supported not only by group strength, but a knowledge of the law.
In 1987 Banchte Shekha decided to launch a village-based paralegal program, and, with support from The Asia Foundation, this Legal Aid Cell has become one of the most innovative paralegal programs in the country. It is also the only one run entirely by women.
The volunteer paralegals are village women who receive training in Muslim family law on dowry, the marriage system, legal divorce, and inheritance. These paralegals provide information to members and other villagers about their rights, and they participate in the shalish, the village form of mediation in Bangladesh.
Until recently, women were not represented at a shalish, even when their own future was at stake. Their male relatives were supposed to represent them, and all the decisions were made by the village men. Banchte Shekha's paralegal program has helped change that.
Three hundred and fifty women have been trained so far as paralegals. They work under the direction of one of the earliest Banchte Shekha members, Rokeya Sattar, herself a village woman who was married at thirteen and abandoned at twenty-two with her four children.
The paralegals have proven to be very effective. By July 1991, they had settled 2,119 disputes at the village level and effected 2,382 marriages without dowry. Attorneys who have evaluated the program have been struck by the poise and confidence of the women as they put their cases before the shalish or hold their own in difficult negotiations.
The legal program has been further strengthened by Asia Foundation support that gives the women the money and the clout to say that they will take a case to court and litigate if mediation fails. In the first four years of the program they have won 278 court cases.
The Mother and Child Health Project has its roots in the early days of Banchte Shekha when Gomes would go to hospitals and plead with the nuns to give her free medicine for village children.
Dr. James Ross, a former program officer with the Ford Foundation, says that when Banchte Shekha approached them in 1987 about funding a primary health care program, one of the things that really excited him about the project was their intent to recruit the health care workers from their own membership.
Initially Ford supported the training of nine women as paramedics. Today the program includes not only paid paramedics, but also more than 100 volunteer health workers-village women who teach members about nutrition, safe water and sanitation, family planning, and prenatal and child care. With the support of regional doctors and the paramedics, the health workers provide routine medical services, such as the distribution of vitamin A.
Village midwives are also offered training as traditional birth attendants (TBAs). According to Banchte Shekha program officer Anup Saha, "Before the TBA training, village midwives followed traditional practices, such as witholding food from the mother and the baby after the delivery. We teach them how to manage a normal delivery and ensure breast feeding, and we provide medical support and advice if they need it." Some 200 women have completed the TBA training.
The Ford Foundation has also capitalized a revolving loan fund that helps women get started with income-generating projects. A woman may request fingerling grass carp, for example, and, after she raises and sells the fish, she repays Banchte Shekha in taka.
Funds generated in this way have been used for a variety of projects, including the purchase of the organization's compound and demonstration farm in Jessore.
The demonstration farm is an important center for training in environmentally sound agricultural methods and income-generating activities. Produce from the farm feeds the staff and as many as 120 women a day who come there for training and refuge.
The manager of the farm is Manowara "Dolly" Begum. An illiterate woman who was divorced when her family could not meet her husband's demands for dowry, she came to Gomes and said she would do anything if she could stay at the Banchte Shekha compound. Gomes trained her to help take care of the cows, and she has now risen to a management position and runs the livestock breeding and production program.
"She is an illiterate woman, but she is educated," says Gomes emphatically. "She can take care of herself. The money she brings in from the farm pays the salaries of the professional staff here."
Farm profits from crops such as fodder also fund scholarships for village girls to attend secondary school and college.
Gomes is particularly proud of this next generation. "They are the ones who will become our leaders," she says. "The mothers, they can only go so far because of the disadvantages of their lives. But their children can do anything now."
In the spring of 1994, Gomes realized another goal: the opening of Banchte Shekha's own training center at the compound in Jessore. In a country where a tin roof is a status symbol, this complex of two-story brick buildings rising out of the red mud is a dramatic illustration of how far Banchte Shekha has come.
Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the new center will not only serve members, but will also provide a place where representatives from government and other organizations can learn what has made Banchte Shekha a success.
Operating a facility of this size-and the budget it requires-has necessitated some changes. In the past year the staff has increased by twenty-five percent to 261 people. Now, in addition to the group organizers, there are field supervisors and area managers who oversee all the activities in a specific geographic area. At the compound there are college-educated, English-speaking accountants and lawyers and secretaries putting in their one-hour-a-day of manual labor alongside trainees from the villages and the older staff.
Despite its rapid growth and the inevitable expansion of management-and management problems-Banchte Shekha remains true to Gomes' original vision.
"What's important to me is that Banchte Shekha is a movement, more than just a development project," says Nick Langton, the Asia Foundation's representative in Bangladesh. "It existed before any funders came along, and it would continue to exist-although on a smaller scale-without us. If you go out and talk to women in these groups, you get a very definite sense that they have been empowered, that they are women making decisions who would not have been making decisions before."
NORAD's Reidar Kvam agrees. He sees Banchte Shekha as a successful working model for other groups.
"This is an example of what woman leaders can achieve in this country," he says. "I think they have been able to demonstrate to a larger audience that there are strong, capable woman leaders here, and that they are addressing issues of concern with an impact even beyond their target organization."
Gomes hopes Banchte Shekha will continue to grow and that other organizations will learn from their experience.
"We have never claimed that this is the only approach to development," she says. "Certainly there may be other ways. The problems of poor women in Bangladesh have been centuries in the making. By comparision, eighteen years is not a long time. But every day is a new day. We have to be creative to cope with the changes it brings."
In the small village in Bangladesh where Angela Gomes grew up
In the small village in Bangladesh where Angela Gomes grew up, women worked hard all day, but, she says, "they were treated like house servants-underfed, beaten, and mentally tortured. No one respected them, not even themselves. They had no solutions to their problems. Life just went on."
Like the other girls from her village, Gomes was expected to marry at fourteen and settle down. But she resisted that idea and won a scholarship to a mission school run by the Sisters of Charity in Jessore.
At the Sacred Heart School, Gomes progressed from student to teacher while still in her teens. She began to work with the nuns and Father Ceci, a Xaverian priest whose program for poor people in the slums of Jessore impressed Gomes greatly.
"Through the sisters and Father Ceci, I became very interested in finding out why women are so exploited and dominated," she recalls.
But unlike the nuns, who called the problems of poor village women 'God-given', Gomes believed that these women could learn to help themselves.
"I wanted to find a solution for them, to work on the 'woman problem', but everyone-Father Ceci, the sisters, my family-thought I should go back to my own village and get married."
Angela Gomes is an extraordinary mixture of warmth, good humor, strength, and determination. No is never a final answer for her. It took all of her persuasive powers, but within a year she was pursuing her own ideal.
"In 1977, I finally began to work in the villages," she says. "The women didn't trust me at first because I was a Christian. They thought I wanted to convert them. Some women thought it was bad luck to look at my face because I had no children. I would try to talk to them about their problems and they would say 'Where is the problem?' They had all kinds of problems, but only I was aware of them."
Gomes went from village to village, alone and on foot. In each village she was able to find someone to take her in, and, while she was there, she lived, ate, and worked side by side with the women.
"They were my university," she says. "Every woman. Every life. I have learned everything I know from them."
She tried to communicate her vision of a different life for village women: a vision in which they were respected for their contributions, not victims of violence and domination; where they could earn their own living and take care of themselves and their children.
When she had gained their confidence, she talked to the women about the struggle between rich and poor-that the poor always lose-and about the particular problems they faced as women.
Like the other girls from her village, Gomes was expected to marry at fourteen and settle down. But she resisted that idea and won a scholarship to a mission school run by the Sisters of Charity in Jessore.
At the Sacred Heart School, Gomes progressed from student to teacher while still in her teens. She began to work with the nuns and Father Ceci, a Xaverian priest whose program for poor people in the slums of Jessore impressed Gomes greatly.
"Through the sisters and Father Ceci, I became very interested in finding out why women are so exploited and dominated," she recalls.
But unlike the nuns, who called the problems of poor village women 'God-given', Gomes believed that these women could learn to help themselves.
"I wanted to find a solution for them, to work on the 'woman problem', but everyone-Father Ceci, the sisters, my family-thought I should go back to my own village and get married."
Angela Gomes is an extraordinary mixture of warmth, good humor, strength, and determination. No is never a final answer for her. It took all of her persuasive powers, but within a year she was pursuing her own ideal.
"In 1977, I finally began to work in the villages," she says. "The women didn't trust me at first because I was a Christian. They thought I wanted to convert them. Some women thought it was bad luck to look at my face because I had no children. I would try to talk to them about their problems and they would say 'Where is the problem?' They had all kinds of problems, but only I was aware of them."
Gomes went from village to village, alone and on foot. In each village she was able to find someone to take her in, and, while she was there, she lived, ate, and worked side by side with the women.
"They were my university," she says. "Every woman. Every life. I have learned everything I know from them."
She tried to communicate her vision of a different life for village women: a vision in which they were respected for their contributions, not victims of violence and domination; where they could earn their own living and take care of themselves and their children.
When she had gained their confidence, she talked to the women about the struggle between rich and poor-that the poor always lose-and about the particular problems they faced as women.
Gradually a small cadre of women-usually destitute women
The way she approached them, Gomes explains, was to "start with what the women wanted, what they needed. They could not eat education. They needed food and work. Once they were sure they would have food-through having work and income-they began to understand how the question of getting more food is dependent on the question of getting more education. Then they became hungry not only for food but also for education."
Gradually a small cadre of women-usually destitute women who had been widowed, divorced, or deserted-became inspired by her ideas and joined her in her work.
For Rokeya Sattar and other early members, the experience was life-changing. "Before we met Angela, we didn't even know we were human beings," says Sattar. "We thought we were like cattle and deserved to be tied in the jungle with the cows."
Gradually a small cadre of women-usually destitute women who had been widowed, divorced, or deserted-became inspired by her ideas and joined her in her work.
For Rokeya Sattar and other early members, the experience was life-changing. "Before we met Angela, we didn't even know we were human beings," says Sattar. "We thought we were like cattle and deserved to be tied in the jungle with the cows."
it is done today-by pooling their talent and resources and
The first women who joined Banchte Shekha started changing their lives the same way it is done today-by pooling their talent and resources and saving money. Ten paisa, twenty paisa, one taka, ten taka. Enough to buy one chicken, two chickens, ten chickens. When their chickens kept dying, Gomes found a way for two of the women to attend a training program in poultry-raising. Then their project began to bring in a little money, and more women were attracted to the group.
Other income-generating projects began on a trial-and-error basis too-growing silkworms and raising fish, making nakshi kantha (traditional embroidered quilts) and jute crafts, keeping bees, fattening cows and goats.
Their projects weren't successful all of the time, but the women's progress was steady. As one woman learned a new skill, she would pass it on to other women. Soon there would be a whole group in a village earning and saving money. The women of a neighboring village would hear about it and want to participate too.
But the women of Banchte Shekha weren't always well received.
"There were people who did not want us because they did not want to see the women improve themselves," Gomes explains. "If women could create their own jobs, they would not need to be servants in wealthy people's homes. If they knew their rights, they couldn't be tricked or beaten. If they had money, they wouldn't need to go to the moneylenders."
"We had rocks and human excrement thrown at us," says Gomes. "They said that I was a characterless woman because I was not married. They called us prostitutes and claimed we were trying to destroy Muslim family life."
At one point a sixteen-page indictment was drawn up against Gomes, accusing her of being a bad influence on the community. She fought the charges successfully, but decided to take the magistrate's advice-he told her that she would be less vulnerable to such attacks if she had "a foundation under her feet."
In 1981, Gomes created that foundation by registering as a nongovernmental organization called Banchte Shekha. "The aim of Banchte Shekha," she says, "is not to rescue women, but to help them learn to live."
Poor women around Jessore were eager to do just that. By 1985, Banchte Shekha had attracted 5,000 members. That figure more than doubled by 1990, and today there are more than 20,000 members in about 700 village-based groups around Jessore.
In traditional Muslim families, a woman does not leave her home without the permission of her husband or mother-in-law. Unless it's absolutely necessary for survival, she does not work outside the home. She does not even go to the marketplace to shop. The marketplace is the province of men, and Muslim women are taught to avoid contact with men outside their families. So the activities of the Banchte Shekha members are changing generations of training and custom.
Banchte Shekha works with women in groups because the group provides support for women undertaking these changes and because, Gomes says, "the problems of the poor are so big they can't be handled either at the individual or family level."
Village groups are formed with the help of organizers-experienced Banchte Shekha members who go to villages where the women have expressed interest in the program.
"We have a good reputation now, so people want us to come," explains Gomes. "Women hear that relatives in another village are making money, and they want to do it too."
Other income-generating projects began on a trial-and-error basis too-growing silkworms and raising fish, making nakshi kantha (traditional embroidered quilts) and jute crafts, keeping bees, fattening cows and goats.
Their projects weren't successful all of the time, but the women's progress was steady. As one woman learned a new skill, she would pass it on to other women. Soon there would be a whole group in a village earning and saving money. The women of a neighboring village would hear about it and want to participate too.
But the women of Banchte Shekha weren't always well received.
"There were people who did not want us because they did not want to see the women improve themselves," Gomes explains. "If women could create their own jobs, they would not need to be servants in wealthy people's homes. If they knew their rights, they couldn't be tricked or beaten. If they had money, they wouldn't need to go to the moneylenders."
"We had rocks and human excrement thrown at us," says Gomes. "They said that I was a characterless woman because I was not married. They called us prostitutes and claimed we were trying to destroy Muslim family life."
At one point a sixteen-page indictment was drawn up against Gomes, accusing her of being a bad influence on the community. She fought the charges successfully, but decided to take the magistrate's advice-he told her that she would be less vulnerable to such attacks if she had "a foundation under her feet."
In 1981, Gomes created that foundation by registering as a nongovernmental organization called Banchte Shekha. "The aim of Banchte Shekha," she says, "is not to rescue women, but to help them learn to live."
Poor women around Jessore were eager to do just that. By 1985, Banchte Shekha had attracted 5,000 members. That figure more than doubled by 1990, and today there are more than 20,000 members in about 700 village-based groups around Jessore.
In traditional Muslim families, a woman does not leave her home without the permission of her husband or mother-in-law. Unless it's absolutely necessary for survival, she does not work outside the home. She does not even go to the marketplace to shop. The marketplace is the province of men, and Muslim women are taught to avoid contact with men outside their families. So the activities of the Banchte Shekha members are changing generations of training and custom.
Banchte Shekha works with women in groups because the group provides support for women undertaking these changes and because, Gomes says, "the problems of the poor are so big they can't be handled either at the individual or family level."
Village groups are formed with the help of organizers-experienced Banchte Shekha members who go to villages where the women have expressed interest in the program.
"We have a good reputation now, so people want us to come," explains Gomes. "Women hear that relatives in another village are making money, and they want to do it too."
Women Helping Women in Bangladesh
Women Helping Women in Bangladesh
It is dawn on a December morning in Bangladesh. The sun is rising in a luminous red ball over fields of yellow mustard flowers. Chickens scratch and peck under tall banana trees, their leaves heavy with dew. A dog barks at the empty sky, and, in the distance, the plaintive call of Muslim prayer undulates along the cool, moist breeze.
Outside the thatch and bamboo huts that dot the roadside, squatting women fan breakfast fires. The rising smoke sways and mingles with clouds of fog that hang over tiny ponds and paddies.
Along the road is a sign, Banchte Shekha: Development Program for Women and Children. A red arrow points across a small pond to a compound of bamboo buildings where a group of women is gathering for breakfast. Banchte Shekha founder Angela Gomes-a tall, vibrant women in her early forties-laughs and chats with the women as she helps serve a meal of porridge, chapatis, and papaya.
Many of these women have spent the night at Banchte Shekha-a safe haven for them from an abusive husband or in-laws. For others, Banchte Shekha-which is Bangla for "learning to live"-is part of a longer journey, a first step toward self-sufficiency and dignity. For all of them, Banchte Shekha offers hope, because one woman believed that poor village women could have better lives, even when they didn't believe it themselves
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