Public Health Commons^™

Le Forum Pour Les Femmes Actives: Lutte Pour Le Crédit Et Le Changement, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Ce numéro de SEEDS retrace les différentes étapes qui ont mené à la création du Forum pour les Femmes à Madras, Inde et comment plus de 13,000 femmes pauvres ont pu, grâce à cette organisation, avoir accès au crédit. II décrit également comment le Forum a diversifié ses activités pour fournir à ses membres d'autres services, notamment dans le domaine de l'éducation, la santé, et la planification familiale et montre comment le fait de se sentir solidaires et reconnues permet à ses membres de mieux faire face aux problèmes politiques et sociaux qui affectent leur vie.

This issue of SEEDS …

Hanover Street: Un Experimento De Capacitacion Femenina En Soladadura Y Carpinteria, Peggy Antrobus, Barbara Rogers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

El Proyecto de Hanover Street, conocido oficialmente como United Women's Woodworking and Welding Project (Proyecto de Carpintería y Soldadura de la Unión Femenina), es un experimento destinado a capacitar a un grupo de mujeres en oficios que usualmente desempeñan los hombres. Se inició en 1976 y fue el primer proyecto de esta clase de la Oficina de la Mujer Jamaiquina, una dependencia creada por el Gobierno de Jamaica durante el Año Internacional de la Mujer, para garantizar la total participación femenina en el desarrollo del país. A pesar de encontrarse aún en una etapa de desarrollo, el proyecto ha demostrado …

The Working Women's Forum: Organizing For Credit And Change, Marty Chen

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDs tells the story of how the Working Women's Forum came into being in Madras, India and how it has brought together more than 13,000 poor, urban women around the issue of credit. It also describes how the Forum has not only provided its members with access to funds, but has expanded to include support services such as child care, education, health, and family planning and how the sense of strength and purpose that has grown up among the members is helping them to tackle the political and social problems that affect their lives.

La Coopérative De Markala: Une Nouvelle Approche Des Rôles Economiques Traditionnaux, Susan Daughman, Mariam N'Diaye Thiam

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Ce numéro de SEEDS présente la cooperative de Markala, née de la détermination d'un groupe de femmes pauvres de la campagne Malienne à trouver un travail rémunerateur. Quand les vingt membres originaux s'associèrent en 1975, leur but était de gagner un salaire et d'apprendre des techniques reconnues et negociable sur le marché de l'emploi. En 1981, elles gèrent avec succès une cooperative qui produit et vend des pièces d'étoffe teintes et du savon de lessive. L'expérience des femmes de Markala a déjà aidé à la création d'autres coopératives dans la campagne Malienne. Cela démontre également que le fait de créer …

Les Femmes Et L'Artisanat: Mythe Et Réalité, Jasleen Dhamija

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Ce rapport examine les travaux manuels et l'artisanat comme un moyen d'assurer un revenu aux femmes. Parfois ces métiers représentent pour elles une source importante d'argent et leur permettent également de rester en lien avec leur propre heritage culture. Dans la plupart des cas cependant, la production artisanale relègue les femmes dans un domaine où le travail est intense et exploiteur, n'offrant qu'un salaire dérisoire pour de longues heures de labeur. Les travaux manuels et l'artisanat peuvent être un moyen pour les femmes d'accroître leurs revenus dans certains environnements, mais seulement sous les conditions présentées dans le rapport, car ces …

Mujeres Y Artesanías: Mito Y Realidad, Jasleen Dhamija

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Este número de SEEDS analiza las artesanías como medio de crear ingresos para las mujeres. En algunos casos constituyen fuente sólida de ganancia; también pueden servirles de nexo con su propia herencia cultural. En la mayoría de los casos, sin embargo, las artesanías hacen que las mujeres se dediquen a un tipo de ocupación que requiere una labor muy intensa, con la que se las puede explotar y que resulta en entradas mínimas por largas horas de trabajo. Las artesanías pueden servir de medio de incrementar los ingresos femeninos en ciertos lugares, pero sólo en las condiciones que se describen …

Cooperativas De Vendedoras De Los Mercados: Dan Préstamos A Las Mujeres, Judith Bruce

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

En 1972, la Fundación Nicaraguense de Desarrollo (FUNDE)—uno de los dos programas patrocinados por el Instituto Nicaraguense de Desarrollo—se dió cuenta de la necesidad que tenían las vendedoras de los mercados de obtener dinero prestado. Esta edición de SEEDS describe de la experiencia de FUNDE en el establecimiento de cooperatives de ahorro y préstamos destinadas a satisfacer esta necesidad. Este resumen hace hincapié tanto en los aspectos humanos del proyecto, como en los financieros y técnicos: El proyecto ha dado buenos resultados porque las cooperativas se han formado con base en la cultura de estas señoras, y utilizan toda la …

Women And Handicrafts: Myth And Reality, Jasleen Dhamija

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of SEEDS reviews handicrafts as a means of providing income to women. In some instances, crafts are a solid source of income and can also provide women with a link to their own cultural heritage. In most instances, however, crafts production concentrates women in an area that is labor intensive and exploitative, providing a meager income for long hours of work. Handicrafts can be a means of increasing income for women in some settings, but only under the conditions outlined in this report, since crafts are specialized activities which have limited markets and offer limited potential as a …

Hanover Street: An Experiment To Train Women In Welding And Carpentry, Peggy Antrobus, Barbara Rogers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Hanover Street Project, formally known as the United Women’s Woodworking and Welding Project, is an experiment in training women for jobs usually held only by men. Begun in 1976, this was the first such program of the Jamaica Women's Bureau, established by the government during International Women's Year to ensure that women participate fully in Jamaica’s development. The project demonstrated that low-income women can learn non-traditional skills and can work together to improve their lives. Through trial and error, the project is providing the Women's Bureau with a wealth of information about teaching technical skills, working with other government …

Village Women Organize: The Mraru Bus Service, Jill Kneerim

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The Mraru Women's Group in rural Kenya, like many community women's organizations around the world, is an example of a deeply rooted tradition of association and self-help among women. In 1971 the group began to gather its resources to solve a common problem—transportation. They raised money, bought a bus, and began a public transport service that made money; they now face other difficult questions such as reinvesting profits, serving members' broader needs, and maintaining a strong economic base. The Mraru Women's Group has shown unusual creativity and persistence in identifying common needs and organizing to meet them. They have also …

Market Women's Cooperatives: Giving Women Credit, Judith Bruce

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In 1972, the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development (Fundación Nicaraguense de Desarrollo—FUNDE), one of two programs sponsored by the Nicaraguan Institute of Development, became aware of market women's need for credit. This issue of SEEDS describes FUNDE's experience in developing savings and loan cooperatives to meet this need. This summary stresses the human aspects of the process as much as the financial and technical ones. The project has been successful because the cooperatives have built upon the existing market women's culture, utilizing all the subtle and complex interpersonal relationships established over the years. In essence what the cooperatives have done is …

Contraceptives And Common Sense: Conventional Methods Reconsidered, Judith Bruce, S. Bruce Schearer

Reproductive Health

Since the 1960s, the solution to contraception problems has been based increasingly on complexity, not simplicity. The oral contraceptive was developed in the late 1950s using newly discovered synthetic hormones that act in intricate ways on glands in the brain. Intrauterine devices were widely introduced in the 1960s in a host of scientifically engineered configurations that act inside a woman’s uterus. Nearly half of all married couples in the United States who use some method of contraception use either the pill or IUD. In examining emerging social trends and considering the special needs of some large groups for better contraceptives—adolescents, …