December 30, 2009 • 22 mins
In this episode Cristen and Molly continue their exploration of CARE, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Atlanta. Tune in to learn more the link between women's rights and the alleviation of poverty.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?
From house Stop works dot com. Hey Thearon, Welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm Molly. So guys, welcome to
(00:21):
part two of our overview of the nonprofit Care UM.
And just to give you a little recap, Care is
a nonprofit headquartered here in Atlanta that UM has a
mission to alleviate global poverty, specifically by empowering women. And
they do this through multiple programs that cover health, education,
(00:43):
water and sanitation, micro enterprise development, and agriculture. And Molly
and I had um the opportunity to go and talk
to Malia Han who works at Care and she is
the director of Program Impact there and she's going to
tell us a little bit about the three areas that
Care has to address in order to affect change in
(01:05):
these women's lives. We identify the three areas that are
most important. The first is, of course, you've got to
have an entry point and you've got to address whatever
is the physical condition or the issue that women are facing.
So if in a particular context, healthcare is the biggest thing,
and you've got extremely high maternal mortality and you've got
very low levels of nutrition. Well that's got to be
(01:28):
one of the first things you address. But just addressing
that in itself is not going to change a woman's life.
The second part of what you've got to change is
a woman's ability to do things, and whether that's through training,
through building her capacity, giving her education, increasing her knowledge,
whatever it is, so just that, or providing her with
(01:49):
with things like credit and finance which allows her to
do things. That's the second part which you've got to
do in order to change um, you know, in a
in a in a long term way. But the third
part is the hardest nut to crack. And those first
two are actually relatively easy. I'm not saying they're easy,
they're relatively easy. The third part is actually changing how
people perceive women and how women perceive themselves, and their
(02:12):
ability to act in a society and what they're able
to do, and that is by far the most difficult things. So, Kristie,
when you listen, when we listen to mileah Han talk,
it seems to make so much sense. But then when
you actually, you know, roll it over in your brain,
it seems like such a hard thing to measure. How
can you tell if a woman's place in a community
has changed? You know it? It really did seem kind
(02:33):
of daunting to me, but she did give us some
ways you can kind of look at it. Um, you
can tell if a woman's place and community has changed
if you're doing let's say, an agriculture product. If when
we talked about this a little bit in the last episode,
if women get the extra income from their own work, Um,
if she gets to have decision making power over how
it's spent um. And when that happens, then you do
(02:55):
see how you know, a man or a mother in law,
per reception of her daughter in law or his wife
does change. Yeah, and even perceptions among other women in
the community. Now, to give an example of how this works,
we're going to use an example that's in the book
Half the Sky by Nicholas Christoph and Cheryl Wu Dunne.
We talked again about this last time. And if you
(03:16):
aren't interested in this book, if you go to Care's
website care dot, or you can buy it through a link.
Um that so, if you buy it through that link,
it takes you to Amazon, but still Care will get
a percentage of the proceeds. But anyway, they have a story.
They have many stories in this book. By the way
of how this works in practice, height can change a
woman's uh position in a community from sort of the
(03:36):
bottom up. They've got a story specifically about something Care did.
It's called a care package for Guaretti. And Gretti is
a woman who lives in Burundi and she has this
husband who beats her spends all the money on banana beer. Gretti,
on the other hand, has never touched any of this
money that goes to banana beer. And she can't even
leave the house without asking her husband, Bernard's permission. And
(03:59):
this really affects her children. You know, her children see
that if they need something, their mom can't get it
for them until the husband comes back and says, yes,
you can go to the market if there was any
money left over after all the money that was spent
at the bar. Right. And even if they do go
to the market, um, Garretti still isn't allowed to handle
the money. The husband will actually stay there with her
(04:19):
and pay for the goods, shield and carry home. Right,
So then care comes in. They form a women's group,
an association about twenty women who are going to get
together and just talk about their lives. And Gretti wants
to go, and her husband says no, and for the
first time in her life, she doesn't get his permission
to leave the house. She goes with her grandmother to
this meeting. Anyway, Now, what this group does is they
(04:42):
do all their work together, and that the women will
go to one family's field one day and do all
the chores, all the work till the land, and then
do another families the next day. And so Bernard sees this,
Bernard the husband and says, okay, I'll let you keep
going to this group. They they're doing my work for me, right. Um.
They all bring a dime to the meeting sort of
their dues. And what they do is they all make
(05:02):
loans to each other and um, then the woman is
expected to pay the loan back into the pool. When
Granny barrows her money, she uses it by fertilizer, and
that was the first time she had handled money. So
with this fertilizer, of course, she is able to have
a more successful crop harvest, so she makes even more money.
She ends up buying bananas and starts selling her own
(05:25):
banana beer that her husband, Bernard liked so much. But
Bernard had to keep his hands off of the banana
beer so that she could sell it. So she starts
making money off of this banana beer. She's able to
pay the loan back with interest, and then eventually she
goes and gets another loan, buys a pregnant goat so
that she is able to have goats she can then sell,
(05:46):
and so it just starts to snowball. You see this
starting from a dime that she invested in this women's group.
To all of a sudden, she is now basically the
head of her household. She's the breadwinner. She doesn't have
to answer to Bernard anymore. Bernard is now coming around
to her to ask permission for things, and it is
(06:07):
entirely revolutionized not only her household but the other community
because she has now been with all of her success,
she's now looked upon um by other members of the
community as sort of the go to person if there's
any kind of household dispute or that if they have
any questions about anything, they go to Gritty. Now Half
the Sky also points out that, uh, at some point
(06:29):
all of this could it's It's also kind of a
house of cards, you know, because UM militants could come
in at some point and raise just decimate her, her
field and her crops be gone. Or someone could steal
the goat, or Bernard could um steal the banana beer
and beat her. You know, there are all these different
things that could happen. But at the same time, it
(06:50):
is um a pretty powerful example of how UM just
with a little a little bit of investment, you're able
to just raise the standard of living for these women
and for their families. Right. You know, Bernard the husband
got malaria which was only able to be uh. The
treatment was paid for with Garretti's money. And a quote
(07:13):
that Kristof includes in the book is, you know, I
see my wife making money now, bringing cash into the house.
I have more respect for her now. So UM and
her children see this, you know, Like like christ And said,
it's a house of cards, But there are numerous examples
of how this can work and how it should work. Yeah,
and it addresses that third area that Melia said is
the most difficult, which is changing the perception of women
(07:36):
in these societies. But one thing that care has also
started to understand is the fact that women really can't
do this on their own. It's very important. Um, and
you'll see this with a lot of CARES work that
they will go in and form groups of women that
can support each other. Women acting alone is very difficult.
(07:58):
So you know, just one woman by her self trying
to defy social norms, expectations of family, the traditional leadership
of her community and what for millennia has been designated
as her place is one an act of courage and
to actually sometimes even dangerous because you know a lot
(08:19):
of gender based violence takes place at that point and
so on. Um. So what CARES discovered that solidarity is
an extremely important part of that. You have to have
groups of women, women who can act together, women who
can give support to each other, and who can also
then use those platforms to say, you know, this is
(08:40):
not just me, or it's not just me being defiant
or being a bad mother, or being a bad wife
or being a bad daughter in law. Um, this is
what really should be expected of every woman. And so
for instance, we have a model called VSNL Village Savings
and Loan, which what we do is we get groups
of women together form cohorts and men also, I mean
(09:01):
it's not just a women's only thing. Men also joined
those and they're and they're actually just sort of saving circles.
They save, they get credit UM, they take out micro
loans UM. Now, actually we have a program that's trying
to cover all of sub Saharan Africa over the next
ten years, which actually then links these groups to financial
services so that women are able to get loans, they're
(09:23):
able to open bank accounts, they're able to transmit money,
which is an extremely important function which they generally are
sort of left out of. So we spoken Lahana asked
her about priorities for the coming year, and one program
that she mentioned was Access Africa, which is going to
be bringing basic financial services over the next decade to
thirty nine steps Saharan African countries. UM. They have this
(09:46):
model that CARE uses called the Village Shavings and Loan Association,
where you basically make loans UM into the pool can
borrow money against it, much like what Garretti did to
start her banana beer business. UM. Women borrowing from each
other in groups and women in the twenty countries where
CARE has used v s l A, the Village Namazing
Loan Association report increased incomes, sustained investment in their children's
(10:10):
education and health, greater self confidence, and increased respect from others. Yeah,
and if you're wondering, you know, why, why are we
so concerned about putting you know, these monetary resources in
the hands of women. Well, UM taken to account the
fact that of the more than one billion people in
the developing world living on less than a dollar a day,
seventy percent of them are women. So I think it's
(10:33):
UM pretty important that they are UM going in and
actually targeting the women in these communities. And not only
the women, they're also targeting girls education as well, because,
like we talked about in the last episode that we
did about care, um uh NGOs and nonprofits have really
come to realize that investment in girls education is so
(10:57):
crucial right now. And so CARE has an other flagship
program called Power Within and their goal is by to
empower ten million girls around the world to learn and lead.
And basically the objective is to help these girls complete
equality primary education because there are a lot of obstacles
(11:17):
for a girl going to school. UM. For instance, you know,
she might not if if there's a choice between a
son or a daughter going to school the money. The
money is going to go to the sun. There might
not be sanitation facilities there um at the school, so
that if she is sick or on her period or
something like that happens, um, she is going to stay home.
(11:38):
There are also issues of rape and child marriage that
are also obviously going to keep girls out of school
as well. And you know, some of the most unique programs,
not necessarily done by CARE, but that are mentioned in
the book Half the Sky are simply just paying the
parents about what a girl could make with the day
in the field, so there's a financial incentive for the
girl to go to school. I mean, this is something
(12:00):
that New York City is experimenting with. Also, it's not
anything that's you know, new to um the developing world.
It's something that in the United States were struggling with
getting our kids all the way through school. And then
the third major program that CARE is working on is
called Mother's Matter, and this is really tackling the issue
of reproductive and maternal health to reduce maternal mortality for
(12:21):
thirty million women in ten countries by now here's an
example of how that works in practice. On Care's website,
They've got an example of a program they're doing in
Smalia where they're partnering with six maternal health care centers
to reduce the maternal and child mortality. It's called the
Safe Motherhood Project. Is providing family planning and medical care
during all the face pregnancy. UM. You know, a woman
(12:43):
could get education about how childbirth works, the risk associated
with childbirth. A lot of the stories and half this
guy deal with women who you know, they run into risk.
I mean they run into a problem during pregnancy or
delivery and don't even realize it's a problem, and so
they get so there's so much delay just getting to
a high hospital or to midwife. But by the time
they actually see someone about a problem they're having, you know,
(13:04):
it's too late. So that Smalley is trying to go
in and say, here's what you've got to look for
throughout the pregnancy, here's what you've got to take to
ensure a healthy pregnancy, and then guide them all the
way through delivery. And in addition to UM attacking these
UM issues with maternal mortality, Care is also implementing more
than seventy reproductive health programs in over thirty countries UM
(13:27):
to help alleviate problems such as HIV transmission, and also
help women understand concepts of family planning women and men.
Speaking of men, Kristen, you know, we've talked about how
care sets itself apart by working within the community to
change an entire community's perception. So how do you do that?
You talked to the men and we asked Leahan about
(13:49):
the role men play and care projects. You know, one
of the things that you have to do in order
to move these things is understand the notion of masculinity
also right, because there's certain expectations of what it is
to be a man, and those expectations aren't always you know,
what men want. They're just what is expected of them
and they know no different, and therefore they feel compelled
(14:12):
to act in the ways that society and their household
and others expect them to act. UM. So we have
a project in in Burundi UM which actually really looks
at this issue UM. Burundi, you know, as you know,
is a society that's had a lot of violence at
various levels UM over many years, and and one of
the huge issues in the society right now is actually
(14:34):
sexual sexual and gender based violence UM beatings and households husbands,
beating wives, being children is extremely common. And there there's
a project UM that Cares is leading there right now
in which they work with men um and they take
men to talk to them, men who used to you know,
and in their own words, I say, I used to
(14:56):
beat my life because that's the only way I knew how.
I go home and I beat her because that's what
I saw around me, That's what I saw my father doing.
I didn't know that there was any other way of being.
But now that I've stopped doing that, and I actually
talked to her, Um, you know, as a as a
fellow human being, my life is better, our home life
is better. We have better health because you know, she's
(15:17):
not constantly being ill. We're actually getting along better. And
and so in that project, it's actually the men um
they call themselves the Lightbearers because they've seen, you know,
they they've changed their lives and now they they've they've
themselves their volunteers and they go from community to community
and they hold meetings and they talk about their own
experiences about how they change their lives and how other
(15:40):
people should also change their lives. Um. I'm not saying
there's always you know, that level of success of men
leading the charge for the change in everything that we do. UM.
But we do work with men very very closely, and
it's really changing their perceptions of what it is to
be a man and what it is to be a woman,
(16:02):
and how the lives of everybody improves when you change
that balance. And I do think that it is important
to focus on men in addition to these women, because
even though CARE is going in and you know, really
targeting the women in these communities, but if you leave
out the men, UM, I think you're kind of missing
the point because a lot of these issues are really
(16:22):
just basic human rights issues. And UM. One of the
reasons why you know, we wanted to have this two
part podcast about care was because it really, at the
end of the day kind of boils down to a
lot of the stuff that we talk about every week
here all these women's issues that might seem just focused
on stuff that that we go through, but also have
(16:45):
effects on you know, men and children as well, and
talk about the importance of a community wide approach to
solving these basic issues. And I think the Leah has
some really compelling stuff to say, UM about kind of
how these issues resonate on a global scale. Now, some
(17:05):
people think that the feminist movement happened a while ago
and it's all done, and that's that's it. I don't
even know why we're talking about this. Well, first of all,
there's still a lot of work to do, even within
the United States, but also the realization that around the
world there's so much that still needs to be done,
and that it's not a Western notion. Human rights is
not a Western notion um. The worth of a woman's
(17:26):
life is not a Western notion. The right to education
is not a Western notion um. And that we really
need to move these things. So there's going to be
a backlash, there's no there's no doubt about it. Um.
But you know, being from um, you know one of
those societies themselves, you know itself. I'm from Pakistan and um.
The notion that somehow, you know, the the right, the
(17:51):
right off a woman to to control her own reproductive
health or the right to an education is something that's
coming from the West is such a false notion. And
you can use that and it is used very effectively
to maintain the statustico um. But all these sort of
arguments are always used to maintain you know, statisicals that
(18:12):
that benefit some people and don't benefit others. Um. So
I think we've really got to get over that. It's
not a Western imposed notion. UM. You know, there was
a there was a process that had to happen in
Europe and had to happen here, and it's still happening,
and there's a process that needs to happen there. And
you know, if you just if you believe that it's
the right of every human being to do these things,
(18:35):
plus if you believe that poverty really will not end
and we will not be able to make a big
dent in it until we actually change women's abilities to
live their lives in ways that they want to. UM.
I think those are those are sort of false arguments
that people used to to to set aside these issues
when they don't want to deal with them. So now,
(18:57):
the reason we did this two part care Um extravaganza
is because this is the end of the year, a
time when people might be choosing to make charitable donations. UM.
We think Care is a great organization. We really feel
good about how they're spending their money and how they're
using it to improve women's lives. But that is not
(19:17):
the We're not just telling people to send money. I
think that Leahan makes an excellent point that just by
being aware of what's going on and utilizing all these
resources that CARE provides it, you can do a tremendous
knot of just activism and raise an awareness within your
own community. This is our meager attempt to do that
UM in our own way. But let's hear from Leah
(19:37):
herself about what women can do to get involved. If
you feel like this is an issue that's that you
feel really passionate about and you want to help, there's
a number of things you can do. UM. You can
donate hopefully to CARE, but there's a number of other
organizations you can donate to who do good work in
this area. UM. You can educate yourself by reading, for instance,
Half the Sky, or there's a number of articles that
(19:58):
have come out recently in different magazines UM, particularly the
New York Times. Excerpt of this actually is a really
good short read UM. And you can and you can
start organizing UM and advocating around this, whether it's at
your local level or to your senator or to your congressman,
because I think again, having movement at that larger level
(20:19):
on this would be a really great thing. So you
heard it, folks, that's what you can do if you
want to help out. And UM, I do highly recommend
checking out Care's website. It's www dot c A r
E dot org. UM. They have a ton of information
on there about statistics programs they're doing, the role of
women in the developing country, links to different articles about
(20:42):
all this stuff, and it's a really great resource you
might want to check out. And we also want to
thank Meliahn for taking the time to talk with us
today and UM, as we've mentioned many times, if UM,
if you want to check out a really great resource
that's not only about things that CAN is doing, but
also other NGOs and nonprofits around the world, you should
(21:04):
check out the book Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof
and his wife named Cheryl Udin, which incidentally first married
couple to win the Pulitzer Prise. This is true. Yes,
power couple. And keep your eye on Care's website because
they're you're ready to do a big event with Christoph
and we've done about Half the Sky, which I think
if you've read the book, it's just it's suppressing because
(21:26):
you see what these men are up against but then
you see how they overcome it, and I think it
promises to be a really great event. Yeah and um
as always, if you want to send me and Molly
some feedback, some thoughts, some comments, holiday wishes, uh, you
can send us an email. Our email is mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com and in the meantime
(21:48):
you should head over to our blog how to stuff
And if you would like to learn more about charity
and women's issues at large, should head on over to
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
(22:10):
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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?
From house Stop works dot com. Hey Thearon, Welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm Molly. So guys, welcome to
(00:21):
part two of our overview of the nonprofit Care UM.
And just to give you a little recap, Care is
a nonprofit headquartered here in Atlanta that UM has a
mission to alleviate global poverty, specifically by empowering women. And
they do this through multiple programs that cover health, education,
(00:43):
water and sanitation, micro enterprise development, and agriculture. And Molly
and I had um the opportunity to go and talk
to Malia Han who works at Care and she is
the director of Program Impact there and she's going to
tell us a little bit about the three areas that
Care has to address in order to affect change in
(01:05):
these women's lives. We identify the three areas that are
most important. The first is, of course, you've got to
have an entry point and you've got to address whatever
is the physical condition or the issue that women are facing.
So if in a particular context, healthcare is the biggest thing,
and you've got extremely high maternal mortality and you've got
very low levels of nutrition. Well that's got to be
(01:28):
one of the first things you address. But just addressing
that in itself is not going to change a woman's life.
The second part of what you've got to change is
a woman's ability to do things, and whether that's through training,
through building her capacity, giving her education, increasing her knowledge,
whatever it is, so just that, or providing her with
(01:49):
with things like credit and finance which allows her to
do things. That's the second part which you've got to
do in order to change um, you know, in a
in a in a long term way. But the third
part is the hardest nut to crack. And those first
two are actually relatively easy. I'm not saying they're easy,
they're relatively easy. The third part is actually changing how
people perceive women and how women perceive themselves, and their
(02:12):
ability to act in a society and what they're able
to do, and that is by far the most difficult things. So, Kristie,
when you listen, when we listen to mileah Han talk,
it seems to make so much sense. But then when
you actually, you know, roll it over in your brain,
it seems like such a hard thing to measure. How
can you tell if a woman's place in a community
has changed? You know it? It really did seem kind
(02:33):
of daunting to me, but she did give us some
ways you can kind of look at it. Um, you
can tell if a woman's place and community has changed
if you're doing let's say, an agriculture product. If when
we talked about this a little bit in the last episode,
if women get the extra income from their own work, Um,
if she gets to have decision making power over how
it's spent um. And when that happens, then you do
(02:55):
see how you know, a man or a mother in law,
per reception of her daughter in law or his wife
does change. Yeah, and even perceptions among other women in
the community. Now, to give an example of how this works,
we're going to use an example that's in the book
Half the Sky by Nicholas Christoph and Cheryl Wu Dunne.
We talked again about this last time. And if you
(03:16):
aren't interested in this book, if you go to Care's
website care dot, or you can buy it through a link.
Um that so, if you buy it through that link,
it takes you to Amazon, but still Care will get
a percentage of the proceeds. But anyway, they have a story.
They have many stories in this book. By the way
of how this works in practice, height can change a
woman's uh position in a community from sort of the
(03:36):
bottom up. They've got a story specifically about something Care did.
It's called a care package for Guaretti. And Gretti is
a woman who lives in Burundi and she has this
husband who beats her spends all the money on banana beer. Gretti,
on the other hand, has never touched any of this
money that goes to banana beer. And she can't even
leave the house without asking her husband, Bernard's permission. And
(03:59):
this really affects her children. You know, her children see
that if they need something, their mom can't get it
for them until the husband comes back and says, yes,
you can go to the market if there was any
money left over after all the money that was spent
at the bar. Right. And even if they do go
to the market, um, Garretti still isn't allowed to handle
the money. The husband will actually stay there with her
(04:19):
and pay for the goods, shield and carry home. Right,
So then care comes in. They form a women's group,
an association about twenty women who are going to get
together and just talk about their lives. And Gretti wants
to go, and her husband says no, and for the
first time in her life, she doesn't get his permission
to leave the house. She goes with her grandmother to
this meeting. Anyway, Now, what this group does is they
(04:42):
do all their work together, and that the women will
go to one family's field one day and do all
the chores, all the work till the land, and then
do another families the next day. And so Bernard sees this,
Bernard the husband and says, okay, I'll let you keep
going to this group. They they're doing my work for me, right. Um.
They all bring a dime to the meeting sort of
their dues. And what they do is they all make
(05:02):
loans to each other and um, then the woman is
expected to pay the loan back into the pool. When
Granny barrows her money, she uses it by fertilizer, and
that was the first time she had handled money. So
with this fertilizer, of course, she is able to have
a more successful crop harvest, so she makes even more money.
She ends up buying bananas and starts selling her own
(05:25):
banana beer that her husband, Bernard liked so much. But
Bernard had to keep his hands off of the banana
beer so that she could sell it. So she starts
making money off of this banana beer. She's able to
pay the loan back with interest, and then eventually she
goes and gets another loan, buys a pregnant goat so
that she is able to have goats she can then sell,
(05:46):
and so it just starts to snowball. You see this
starting from a dime that she invested in this women's group.
To all of a sudden, she is now basically the
head of her household. She's the breadwinner. She doesn't have
to answer to Bernard anymore. Bernard is now coming around
to her to ask permission for things, and it is
(06:07):
entirely revolutionized not only her household but the other community
because she has now been with all of her success,
she's now looked upon um by other members of the
community as sort of the go to person if there's
any kind of household dispute or that if they have
any questions about anything, they go to Gritty. Now Half
the Sky also points out that, uh, at some point
(06:29):
all of this could it's It's also kind of a
house of cards, you know, because UM militants could come
in at some point and raise just decimate her, her
field and her crops be gone. Or someone could steal
the goat, or Bernard could um steal the banana beer
and beat her. You know, there are all these different
things that could happen. But at the same time, it
(06:50):
is um a pretty powerful example of how UM just
with a little a little bit of investment, you're able
to just raise the standard of living for these women
and for their families. Right. You know, Bernard the husband
got malaria which was only able to be uh. The
treatment was paid for with Garretti's money. And a quote
(07:13):
that Kristof includes in the book is, you know, I
see my wife making money now, bringing cash into the house.
I have more respect for her now. So UM and
her children see this, you know, Like like christ And said,
it's a house of cards, But there are numerous examples
of how this can work and how it should work. Yeah,
and it addresses that third area that Melia said is
the most difficult, which is changing the perception of women
(07:36):
in these societies. But one thing that care has also
started to understand is the fact that women really can't
do this on their own. It's very important. Um, and
you'll see this with a lot of CARES work that
they will go in and form groups of women that
can support each other. Women acting alone is very difficult.
(07:58):
So you know, just one woman by her self trying
to defy social norms, expectations of family, the traditional leadership
of her community and what for millennia has been designated
as her place is one an act of courage and
to actually sometimes even dangerous because you know a lot
(08:19):
of gender based violence takes place at that point and
so on. Um. So what CARES discovered that solidarity is
an extremely important part of that. You have to have
groups of women, women who can act together, women who
can give support to each other, and who can also
then use those platforms to say, you know, this is
(08:40):
not just me, or it's not just me being defiant
or being a bad mother, or being a bad wife
or being a bad daughter in law. Um, this is
what really should be expected of every woman. And so
for instance, we have a model called VSNL Village Savings
and Loan, which what we do is we get groups
of women together form cohorts and men also, I mean
(09:01):
it's not just a women's only thing. Men also joined
those and they're and they're actually just sort of saving circles.
They save, they get credit UM, they take out micro
loans UM. Now, actually we have a program that's trying
to cover all of sub Saharan Africa over the next
ten years, which actually then links these groups to financial
services so that women are able to get loans, they're
(09:23):
able to open bank accounts, they're able to transmit money,
which is an extremely important function which they generally are
sort of left out of. So we spoken Lahana asked
her about priorities for the coming year, and one program
that she mentioned was Access Africa, which is going to
be bringing basic financial services over the next decade to
thirty nine steps Saharan African countries. UM. They have this
(09:46):
model that CARE uses called the Village Shavings and Loan Association,
where you basically make loans UM into the pool can
borrow money against it, much like what Garretti did to
start her banana beer business. UM. Women borrowing from each
other in groups and women in the twenty countries where
CARE has used v s l A, the Village Namazing
Loan Association report increased incomes, sustained investment in their children's
(10:10):
education and health, greater self confidence, and increased respect from others. Yeah,
and if you're wondering, you know, why, why are we
so concerned about putting you know, these monetary resources in
the hands of women. Well, UM taken to account the
fact that of the more than one billion people in
the developing world living on less than a dollar a day,
seventy percent of them are women. So I think it's
(10:33):
UM pretty important that they are UM going in and
actually targeting the women in these communities. And not only
the women, they're also targeting girls education as well, because,
like we talked about in the last episode that we
did about care, um uh NGOs and nonprofits have really
come to realize that investment in girls education is so
(10:57):
crucial right now. And so CARE has an other flagship
program called Power Within and their goal is by to
empower ten million girls around the world to learn and lead.
And basically the objective is to help these girls complete
equality primary education because there are a lot of obstacles
(11:17):
for a girl going to school. UM. For instance, you know,
she might not if if there's a choice between a
son or a daughter going to school the money. The
money is going to go to the sun. There might
not be sanitation facilities there um at the school, so
that if she is sick or on her period or
something like that happens, um, she is going to stay home.
(11:38):
There are also issues of rape and child marriage that
are also obviously going to keep girls out of school
as well. And you know, some of the most unique programs,
not necessarily done by CARE, but that are mentioned in
the book Half the Sky are simply just paying the
parents about what a girl could make with the day
in the field, so there's a financial incentive for the
girl to go to school. I mean, this is something
(12:00):
that New York City is experimenting with. Also, it's not
anything that's you know, new to um the developing world.
It's something that in the United States were struggling with
getting our kids all the way through school. And then
the third major program that CARE is working on is
called Mother's Matter, and this is really tackling the issue
of reproductive and maternal health to reduce maternal mortality for
(12:21):
thirty million women in ten countries by now here's an
example of how that works in practice. On Care's website,
They've got an example of a program they're doing in
Smalia where they're partnering with six maternal health care centers
to reduce the maternal and child mortality. It's called the
Safe Motherhood Project. Is providing family planning and medical care
during all the face pregnancy. UM. You know, a woman
(12:43):
could get education about how childbirth works, the risk associated
with childbirth. A lot of the stories and half this
guy deal with women who you know, they run into risk.
I mean they run into a problem during pregnancy or
delivery and don't even realize it's a problem, and so
they get so there's so much delay just getting to
a high hospital or to midwife. But by the time
they actually see someone about a problem they're having, you know,
(13:04):
it's too late. So that Smalley is trying to go
in and say, here's what you've got to look for
throughout the pregnancy, here's what you've got to take to
ensure a healthy pregnancy, and then guide them all the
way through delivery. And in addition to UM attacking these
UM issues with maternal mortality, Care is also implementing more
than seventy reproductive health programs in over thirty countries UM
(13:27):
to help alleviate problems such as HIV transmission, and also
help women understand concepts of family planning women and men.
Speaking of men, Kristen, you know, we've talked about how
care sets itself apart by working within the community to
change an entire community's perception. So how do you do that?
You talked to the men and we asked Leahan about
(13:49):
the role men play and care projects. You know, one
of the things that you have to do in order
to move these things is understand the notion of masculinity
also right, because there's certain expectations of what it is
to be a man, and those expectations aren't always you know,
what men want. They're just what is expected of them
and they know no different, and therefore they feel compelled
(14:12):
to act in the ways that society and their household
and others expect them to act. UM. So we have
a project in in Burundi UM which actually really looks
at this issue UM. Burundi, you know, as you know,
is a society that's had a lot of violence at
various levels UM over many years, and and one of
the huge issues in the society right now is actually
(14:34):
sexual sexual and gender based violence UM beatings and households husbands,
beating wives, being children is extremely common. And there there's
a project UM that Cares is leading there right now
in which they work with men um and they take
men to talk to them, men who used to you know,
and in their own words, I say, I used to
(14:56):
beat my life because that's the only way I knew how.
I go home and I beat her because that's what
I saw around me, That's what I saw my father doing.
I didn't know that there was any other way of being.
But now that I've stopped doing that, and I actually
talked to her, Um, you know, as a as a
fellow human being, my life is better, our home life
is better. We have better health because you know, she's
(15:17):
not constantly being ill. We're actually getting along better. And
and so in that project, it's actually the men um
they call themselves the Lightbearers because they've seen, you know,
they they've changed their lives and now they they've they've
themselves their volunteers and they go from community to community
and they hold meetings and they talk about their own
experiences about how they change their lives and how other
(15:40):
people should also change their lives. Um. I'm not saying
there's always you know, that level of success of men
leading the charge for the change in everything that we do. UM.
But we do work with men very very closely, and
it's really changing their perceptions of what it is to
be a man and what it is to be a woman,
(16:02):
and how the lives of everybody improves when you change
that balance. And I do think that it is important
to focus on men in addition to these women, because
even though CARE is going in and you know, really
targeting the women in these communities, but if you leave
out the men, UM, I think you're kind of missing
the point because a lot of these issues are really
(16:22):
just basic human rights issues. And UM. One of the
reasons why you know, we wanted to have this two
part podcast about care was because it really, at the
end of the day kind of boils down to a
lot of the stuff that we talk about every week
here all these women's issues that might seem just focused
on stuff that that we go through, but also have
(16:45):
effects on you know, men and children as well, and
talk about the importance of a community wide approach to
solving these basic issues. And I think the Leah has
some really compelling stuff to say, UM about kind of
how these issues resonate on a global scale. Now, some
(17:05):
people think that the feminist movement happened a while ago
and it's all done, and that's that's it. I don't
even know why we're talking about this. Well, first of all,
there's still a lot of work to do, even within
the United States, but also the realization that around the
world there's so much that still needs to be done,
and that it's not a Western notion. Human rights is
not a Western notion um. The worth of a woman's
(17:26):
life is not a Western notion. The right to education
is not a Western notion um. And that we really
need to move these things. So there's going to be
a backlash, there's no there's no doubt about it. Um.
But you know, being from um, you know one of
those societies themselves, you know itself. I'm from Pakistan and um.
The notion that somehow, you know, the the right, the
(17:51):
right off a woman to to control her own reproductive
health or the right to an education is something that's
coming from the West is such a false notion. And
you can use that and it is used very effectively
to maintain the statustico um. But all these sort of
arguments are always used to maintain you know, statisicals that
(18:12):
that benefit some people and don't benefit others. Um. So
I think we've really got to get over that. It's
not a Western imposed notion. UM. You know, there was
a there was a process that had to happen in
Europe and had to happen here, and it's still happening,
and there's a process that needs to happen there. And
you know, if you just if you believe that it's
the right of every human being to do these things,
(18:35):
plus if you believe that poverty really will not end
and we will not be able to make a big
dent in it until we actually change women's abilities to
live their lives in ways that they want to. UM.
I think those are those are sort of false arguments
that people used to to to set aside these issues
when they don't want to deal with them. So now,
(18:57):
the reason we did this two part care Um extravaganza
is because this is the end of the year, a
time when people might be choosing to make charitable donations. UM.
We think Care is a great organization. We really feel
good about how they're spending their money and how they're
using it to improve women's lives. But that is not
(19:17):
the We're not just telling people to send money. I
think that Leahan makes an excellent point that just by
being aware of what's going on and utilizing all these
resources that CARE provides it, you can do a tremendous
knot of just activism and raise an awareness within your
own community. This is our meager attempt to do that
UM in our own way. But let's hear from Leah
(19:37):
herself about what women can do to get involved. If
you feel like this is an issue that's that you
feel really passionate about and you want to help, there's
a number of things you can do. UM. You can
donate hopefully to CARE, but there's a number of other
organizations you can donate to who do good work in
this area. UM. You can educate yourself by reading, for instance,
Half the Sky, or there's a number of articles that
(19:58):
have come out recently in different magazines UM, particularly the
New York Times. Excerpt of this actually is a really
good short read UM. And you can and you can
start organizing UM and advocating around this, whether it's at
your local level or to your senator or to your congressman,
because I think again, having movement at that larger level
(20:19):
on this would be a really great thing. So you
heard it, folks, that's what you can do if you
want to help out. And UM, I do highly recommend
checking out Care's website. It's www dot c A r
E dot org. UM. They have a ton of information
on there about statistics programs they're doing, the role of
women in the developing country, links to different articles about
(20:42):
all this stuff, and it's a really great resource you
might want to check out. And we also want to
thank Meliahn for taking the time to talk with us
today and UM, as we've mentioned many times, if UM,
if you want to check out a really great resource
that's not only about things that CAN is doing, but
also other NGOs and nonprofits around the world, you should
(21:04):
check out the book Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof
and his wife named Cheryl Udin, which incidentally first married
couple to win the Pulitzer Prise. This is true. Yes,
power couple. And keep your eye on Care's website because
they're you're ready to do a big event with Christoph
and we've done about Half the Sky, which I think
if you've read the book, it's just it's suppressing because
(21:26):
you see what these men are up against but then
you see how they overcome it, and I think it
promises to be a really great event. Yeah and um
as always, if you want to send me and Molly
some feedback, some thoughts, some comments, holiday wishes, uh, you
can send us an email. Our email is mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot com and in the meantime
(21:48):
you should head over to our blog how to stuff
And if you would like to learn more about charity
and women's issues at large, should head on over to
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
(22:10):
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
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