Photo: Creativos/Oxfam - click to enlarge

This week’s photo and story comes from Tjarda Muller, Oxfam communications officer in Central America.

Small-business owner Olga Alicia Pérez, pictured, lives in San Miguel Chicaj’, municipality of the department of Baja Verapaz in central Guatemala. “I make ice, jelly and fruit cocktails,” Pérez says. “Thank God, the business is doing well. My son studies and I am able to give him some money for a midday snack, or for the assignments he gets.”

Pérez is a member of an Oxfam Saving for Change group in her community, which helps her to keep her small business afloat. In Saving for Change, groups of 15 to 20 women combine their savings in a group fund. Members can borrow money from the fund to start or revive a small business, buy seeds and fertilizer for their land, or respond to an emergency. In Baja Verapaz, where 70 percent of the population lives in poverty, recurrent droughts as well as heavy rainfalls can devastate crops. Saving for Change provides an opportunity for women to lift themselves and their families out of these crisis situations.

“We fight; we struggle to save some money. This is a beautiful project. Many people in San Miguel Chicaj’ are involved now,” says Pérez.

The benefits of savings groups like these are now reaching far beyond Central America. Last week a group of international organizations, including Oxfam America, announced “50 by 2020,” an initiative to expand savings group membership globally from 6 million to 50 million by 2020.

This post was co-authored by Victoria Marzilli and Anna Kramer.

By now we’ve probably all heard 2012 being called a new “year of the woman.” From a record number of females elected into the US Congress, to the young Pakistani education activist who was TIME’s runner-up for Person of the Year (with Hillary Clinton and Marissa Mayer making the shortlist), the girls are seriously representing this year. But, even with all the focus on these extraordinary women, we feel like there’s still something missing.

You see, working at Oxfam, we have the incredible opportunity to hear stories of people who beat the odds every day. But what we’ve learned is that those odds are, more often than not, stacked against women. So in the spirit of reflection, we’ve chosen five more women–who you probably have never heard of–who are inspiring us to keep up the fight for social justice and keep changing the world for the better.

1. The spokeswoman

Photo: Jacob Silberberg/Oxfam America

Nigeria’s Susan Godwin is a farmer, public speaker, feminist, entrepreneur, and human rights activist all rolled into one. As a voice for greater investment in rural women farmers, she’s shared her story with audiences all over the world this year, whether at events organized by US volunteers, the World Food Prize Conference in Iowa, or Oxfam’s ongoing global discussion about the Future of Agriculture. To hear Susan tell her story in her own words, watch the video of Oxfam America’s recent “Talks at Google” event focused on ending hunger.

2. The first responder

Photo: Rene Figueroa/Oxfam America

In El Salvador, Doris Escobar coordinates a core group of dedicated volunteers–more than half of them women–who are experts at emergency water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion. Thanks to training supported by Oxfam, Escobar’s volunteers made a difference when an extraordinary storm struck El Salvador late last year. More recently, the group has been training new members from 150 communities. “It has been a lot of work,” said Escobar, “but we are teaching that women are capable of doing everything that men can. I tell many women, ‘We don’t have to follow behind a man. We can walk in front of one.’” Read the full story here.

3. The smart gardener

Photo: Percy Ramirez/Oxfam America

Luz Sinarahua, 26, leads a group of women and mothers in rural Chirikyacu, Peru, who work together to maintain a community garden that’s far from ordinary. Sinarahua and her fellow women are participants in an Oxfam pilot project that helps indigenous women reclaim their ancestors’ traditional crops while increasing their incomes and combating the effects of climate change. “We are 18 really active women,” saind Sinarahua of her fellow growers. “We are unified, and we coordinate our work.” Read the full story here.

 4. The rural innovator

Photo: Sokunthea Chor/Oxfam America

Chheng Cheeung, a rice farmer from Cambodia’s Pursat province, was one of the first farmers in her village to try the System of Rice Intensification, an innovative method that can grow more rice using less water and fewer resources. Though her neighbors laughed at her at first, Chheng proved them wrong when her stronger crops not only survived a flood: they flourished. She was able to double her income from her rice crop–money that she invested in her daughter’s education–and now serves as a model for innovation throughout her community. Read the rest of her story here.

5. The female food hero

Photo: Oxfam

Oxfam’s Female Food Hero contest is raising the profile of women in places like Tanzania and Ethiopia—where women grow, cook, and produce most of their countries’ food, but are rarely publicly recognized for their accomplishments. Sister Martha Waziri, this year’s winner of the contest in Tanzania, reclaimed a barren, unwanted patch of land and turned it into a source of food and income, and then motivated others in her community to do the same. “Sister Martha is not an agro-science expert,” wrote Oxfam’s Mwanahamisi Salimu earlier this year. “But this extraordinary woman from an ordinary rural community has made a substantial contribution to conserve her environment and made a remarkable difference in the lives of her fellow villagers.” Read the rest of her story here.

 We want to hear from you: What other unsung women heroes changed the world in 2012? Tell us by leaving a comment below.

Philomena Addo

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Addo, 54, a widow and mother of three, lost her farmland to a gold mine and became an activist order to represent her community in negotiations with the mining company. Photo: Jeff Deutsch/Oxfam America

Since today, December 10, is international Human Rights Day, I am just reading over a short history of the drafting of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted on this date in 1948. Despite the fact that the UDHR is a “declaration” and not a formal binding treaty, it has served as the foundation of the modern human rights movement: Every time a country references one of its articles in a constitution, or cites it in a legal decision in a court, the UDHR continues to gather strength and move the world to a place where there are no excuses for violations of basic freedoms.

The notion of basic rights is behind our work at Oxfam, so I am also thinking about those people we work with who are fighting for their own rights, and those of others, every day. Here are just three examples that stand out:

1. Philomena Addo, a local political representative in a small town in Ghana, told me last year that she is negotiating with mining companies from a position of strength, now that she understands her basic right to be consulted: “Now they know if they want to work here they need to come and ask for our consent. Now they recognize we know our rights, and that is why they are respecting us.”

2. Ines Santizo, working in Guatemala to help women survivors of domestic violence to understand their basic rights to live free from violence. She told me that she tries to teach women three things about themselves: “Who I am, what I am worth, and what I am capable of doing.”

3. The courageous people and organizations involved in Oxfam’s worker’s rights program in the US: Some of the most basic rights in the UDHR do not apply to farmworkers in the US, such as the right to a basic minimum wage, for example. The right to form a labor union (Article 23) is also routinely denied.

Eleanor Roosevelt was the US representative on the UN committee that wrote the UDHR, she said that in the field of human rights “to stand still is to retreat.” This is one of the reasons Oxfam places the basic rights of people at the center of our work, and why we won’t stop working on them.

Hurricane Sandy brought flooding to Haiti. Photo: Reuters/Swoan Parker, courtesy the Thomson Reuters Foundation – AlertNet

Sophia Lafontant is Oxfam America’s lead organizer for Haiti.

It is amazing how quickly life can change. In a matter of hours, people in New York’s Breezy Point, The Rockaways and Staten Island, in New Jersey’s Atlantic City, in Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti were all faced with the reality of lost property, death, and power outages. It makes me realize how interconnected we all are and dependent on our families, friends, elected officials, and the kindness of strangers to help us when we cannot help ourselves.

I live in Washington, D.C., and while Sandy came through here too, it was not with the same force.  While holed up in my apartment for the better part of two days, my mind and thoughts often raced to Haiti, where 54 people reportedly died in the storm, and my extended family and friends still there. Both my parents were born and raised on the island and came to the US as young adults to escape the repressive government of Jean Claude Duvalier. Like many children of immigrant parents, I was raised with one foot in the US and one foot in Haiti. Despite the extreme differences, I love both countries dearly. As an American, I cherish the opportunities and freedoms I have had all my life living here. But Haiti, the land of my parents’ birth, pulls at my heart strings constantly. And the storm, in an odd way, brought into focus for me the sudden similarities in these neighboring nations: the anxiety, fear, loss, suffering, and high-level discussions about if and how to rebuild. Read the rest of this entry »

Massiel Merino is the winner of an essay contest sponsored by Oxfam. Photo by Elizabeth Hurtado

This piece was written by Tjarda Muller, a regional communications officer for Oxfam America based in El Salvador.

For seven years now I’ve lived in El Salvador. Contrasts here, as in many other developing countries, are extreme. Between rich and poor, between urban and rural areas, between young, trendy university students and small-scale farmers. That was my perception at least—until recently when Oxfam’s GROW campaign launched an essay contest in South America and Central America on the theme of “cultivating a better future for rural women” and a young, trendy, urban, Salvadoran university student won.

When I talk to Massiel Merino, the 23-year-old winner who just earned her degree in international relations, it’s clear that there certainly are young, urban people who feel a connection with rural El Salvador.

 ”The phrase ‘Hungry for Change?’ motivated me to participate,” says Merino, citing a tagline that helped promote the contest. “Sometimes I would like to give my contribution, but I think that I can’t do it. So when I read the phrase, I said to myself: This is my chance to do something.”

And that meant speaking out.

“Rural women work hard and earn very little,” Hungry forMerino says. “We live in an unfair system and we must fight to change it. But it’s not only about empowering women, but that awareness should be raised amongst men also.”

Merino believes that public attitudes can change, even if that change is a slow, person-by-person process.

 ”I think organizations like Oxfam can do something and that’s the reason why I joined the GROW campaign,” she says. “It was my opportunity to give my modest contribution and help rural women. And at the same time it was the opportunity to express myself and speak out about such an essential issue for development.”

Merino received her prize –an Ipad– Sept. 18 at the University of El Salvador, where she studied. And proving my assumption wrong one more time, more than 150 students attended the event, during which members of the GROW campaign gave an overview of their work. The afternoon ended with a group of women playing “batucada,” a local drum, as some of the students lingered, their desire to make a difference inspiring them to approach me and ask how they could join the campaign.

I was inspired too. The event and the conversation with Massiel Merino have stirred my enthusiasm to start working with a whole new group of people and link them to our global movement for change.

Melvin Elias Fuentes, a community leader trained to help provide clean water during emergencies in El Salvador. Photo by Rene Figueroa/Oxfam America

This blog was written by Tjarda Muller, Oxfam America’s communications officer in San Salvador.

I’m thinking back six months ago—to February—when I was in the field with Elizabeth Stevens, Oxfam America’s humanitarian communications officer. Together with technicians from our partner organizations, we were visiting rural communities across El Salvador. The weather was hot and a big bottle of water was my constant companion. Water: a commodity so ordinary for many of us. But there in remote areas, water doesn’t flow fresh and clear out of a tap. It comes from hand-dug wells and is often highly contaminated. If Elizabeth or I were to drink it, we’d definitely get sick. But so do the people who have no choice but to drink it. Contaminated water isn’t something one’s body easily adapts to and gastrointestinal diseases are common in these villages. During flooding, which happen on a yearly basis, contamination gets even worse. And so do the diseases.

That’s why Oxfam America started training a team of 17 technicians from partner organizations to become specialists in WASH, or water, sanitation and hygiene promotion in emergencies.

Now, during this month of August, the WASH team is celebrating its fifth anniversary. The team has been trained in installing water tanks after emergencies, monitoring water quality, cleaning contaminated latrines and hand-dug wells, fumigation, garbage management and pest control. The reach of the team is national and each member can be deployed instantly to where disaster strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

Residents of San Isidro (in Cabañas, El Salvador) look out over a valley where the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim proposed to mine gold and silver. Photo by Jeff Deutsch/Oxfam America.

There’s a legal battle underway in Washington right now, between the government of El Salvador and a Canadian mining company called Pacific Rim. Citing the threat of environmental damage, in 2009 the government of El Salvador denied a mining permit to Pacific Rim, which was planning to mine for gold and silver. So the company set up an office in the United States and is suing the government of El Salvador under the rules of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).  This has led to two years of hearings at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, DC.

There’s a lot riding on this case for the government of El Salvador, beyond the $77 million Pacific Rim is demanding in the suit, which is about one percent of the country’s GDP. El Salvador is a small, densely populated country where there is already a lot of stress on the surface waters on which the citizens depend for drinking and for agriculture. Large-scale industrial mining could have irreversible effects on the country’s fragile and diminishing resources, and a number of courageous people who have dared to organize resistance to mining have been killed.

However when El Salvador signed CAFTA, it became subject to rules that might prevent it from denying mining companies the opportunity to operate on the basis of public safety or environmental protection. Companies can claim this is like having their businesses expropriated. Read the rest of this entry »

By participating in emergency preparedness and response, says Doris Escobar (left), “women have put themselves in the service of their communities and have been recognized for that.” Photo by René Figueroa/Oxfam America

“Many women have become more respected leaders as a result of their work on disasters,” said Doris Escobar, my guide on a recent trip to El Salvador.

As we made our way from a flood-affected village in the western department of Ahuachapán to another across the country in San Miguel, Doris told me the story of how a team of first responders made a difference when an extraordinary storm struck El Salvador in October 2011. (Read about the team’s response to the flood emergency.)

The team was founded four years ago by Oxfam and our Salvadoran partners, and it is coordinated by Escobar herself. It began as a core group of dedicated volunteers—more than half of them women—interested in becoming experts in emergency WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion) and willing to be deployed anywhere in the country at a moment’s notice. More recently, the group has been training up new members from 150 communities around the country to ensure that the people who are living in vulnerable areas have the know-how to protect the health and safety of their neighbors.

 Helping women take leadership has been a priority from day one.

“Self-esteem is so low in women in the communities,” said Escobar. Many, she said, “feel they can’t do anything except work in the kitchen, prepare food, care for children, and clean.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A girl uses one of the chlroine dispensers Oxfam installed in Haiti. Photo by Elizabeth Stevens/Oxfam

When I look at pictures of Haiti’s countryside, I’m always struck by how beautiful much of the landscape is, particularly in the rice-growing region along the Artibonite River. But then I think about the grim underside of that beauty—the cholera that can so easily course through rivers like the Artibonite, spreading sickness and death.

The outbreak that started 10 months after a devastating earthquake in 2010 has now claimed more than 7,000 lives and sickened more than half a million people—as if Haiti needed any more trouble heaped on its citizens. The cholera epidemic is reportedly the largest in modern history, and it’s been in the news a lot lately. The New York Times ran a lengthy story early this month and yesterday, NPR filed its own report on the urgent health problem.

The heart of the trouble is the almost complete lack of functioning water and sanitation systems across the country. Many people are pretty much on their own when it comes to providing water for their families: They lug it home from wherever they can find it, and in the rural areas that’s often streams and rivers. Whether it’s fit for drinking—and cholera-free—can be hard for families to determine. Read the rest of this entry »

Angela Bruce Raeburn is Oxfam America’s senior policy adviser for humanitarian response in Haiti. Last month, she visited the largest “spontaneous settlement” in Port-au-Prince.

This photo at the Petionville golf camp was taken 10 months after the earthquake in Haiti. Photo by Chris Hufstader / Oxfam America.

Located at the end of a winding road in the posh part of town, past the home of the US Ambassador to Haiti and the tennis courts, sits a golf course. It is the site of a make-shift camp plastered with the big letters naming the large aid agencies that have provided assistance here since the earthquake.

It has also been the home of approximately 16,000 men, women, and children since January 2010 when the quake decimated the already fragile and tenuous lives they once led.

Romelus Raynald, the coordinator of water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion activities at the camp, noted: “The people come to my office and they tell me their stories. They want work, they want food, and they want their kids to go to school.”

Raynald is an impressive, soft-spoken man whose face is an open book of sadness and details about the camp and its residents. He says that the camp population has fallen from about 9,000 families to roughly 4,500 families. “Many have returned to their homes, others have found alternative homes and temporary shelters.”

“But those who are left behind truly have no place to go. “There has not been a lot offered by anyone to help. It is really Sean who has helped us.” Read the rest of this entry »