'True charity is the desire to be useful to others with no thought of recompense.' Emanuel Swedenborg

I've been living in Honduras for 7 weeks now and am still finding things that shock and surprise me about the local culture here in Marcala. The most shocking realisation was just how unbelievably poor some of the people we work with are. In rural Honduras 65.4% of the population live below the line of poverty. Meaning that the majority of people here live on less than $1 a day. There has been a lot of press recently about living below the line, Progressio has launched a campaign to try and raise awareness by challenging people to live on less than a £1 a day on food and drink. This is a great way to show just how difficult it is but doesn't take into account the other problems faced everyday by the people in these communities.

Alba's House

We have been helping out by working on farms and in fields yet we didn't realise that it costs a lot of money to take the produce to market: it will cost around about 300 Lempiras (about $15) for Alba to take her harvest the few miles into Marcala as she doesn't own her own transport. She cannot afford to pay for this and so sometimes her harvest has had to go to waste. Furthermore, basic needs are just not met here. Very few houses have running water, especially out in the hillside communities. Our own house here in the town of Marcala only has running water intermittently during the day and it is not safe to drink at any time. At Alba's farm a water pipe, which brought water down from the mountains, had broken and she had to make the difficult decision to redirect the water away from her field to her house- where it was most needed. She has no telephone or electricity so she couldn't phone anyone in the town to help fix it, so her cabbage crop has suffered because of this. It is almost impossible for me to imagine this severity of poverty.

Today we were invited to another farm, so remote in the mountains we had to trek for 30 minutes to get to it. The location was picture perfect, the view over the misty blue mountains was incredible; this would be a dream getaway by anyone's standards. Yet the house was unimaginably basic, the kitchen was bare, the fire-fueled stove was outside, the 'washing machine' is just a tank of water and a scrubbing board and the chickens appeared to eat better than the children.

Crops affected by disease and lack of water.

Unfortunately this is a chronic problem, not only across Honduras, but Central America and the developing world in general. They are caught in what can be referred to as the 'poverty trap', this means that it is particularly difficult to get out of poverty. Our work in the fields and with local organisations provides quick immediate help but does not actively sustain development. Unfortunately, due to rife corruption and criminal activity an injection of money from international aid is not always the solution either. The best way we can help is to offer what little we have, the women are always so grateful to receive us and we can only hope that the knowledge and expertise of aid organisations such as Progressio will help some of the world's poorest communities to thrive and prosper.

Alba's Farm: Progressio Honduras

Alba, her mother and some of the Progressio Volunteers

One of the intentions of Progressio and the partner organisation COMUCAP is to give local women the chance to improve their confidence as well as exchanging cultural understanding with the volunteers. Even in the short time we have been working on Alba’s farm her confidence has noticeably grown. She is proud of the fact that she could teach us how to turn the soil, to make beds ready for planting and lay out an irrigation system effectively. We learnt a lot from her and her family.

Progressio has been working with Alba for almost 4 years. Women from COMUCAP first went to her, then Progressio development worker, Roger Diaz, helped show Alba and her family how to make her farm more successful. Alba explains that life was difficult before then. She told us, “we didn’t have any confidence as a group, we didn’t have trust in projects until COMUCAP arrived and integrated us into their cooperative.” When her crops failed, Progressio and COMUCAP helped; they have provided her with valuable resources such as a chalk composite which helps balance the acidity of the soil on her farm naturally. They have provided organic fertilizers and organic products to fumigate the area, “they have always been helping us in this way, right from the beginning of the project.” Alba has not had to pay for any part of the scheme, but told us that as a group they have invested a part of their profits and hope to buy a water tank for the irrigation system. In addition to this financial and technical aid, we volunteered on the farm for a week. This meant that work which would have taken her weeks was completed before the rains at the weekend. Now Alba will be able to plant her new crop and we will go back to help her weed and maintain the beds to ensure a fruitful and healthy harvest.

The carrot crop of this harvest, however, won’t sustain Alba and her family for very long. She sells them at the market in Marcala, but they like carrots to be big in Honduras, “you have to grow them big otherwise you can’t sell them.” The women of the group also work picking coffee at nearby farms but this is seasonal. They have to rely on their other crops for the rest of the year. Next season Alba and the women plan to develop their own small coffee plantation on the farm. Glenda, the Central American regional director for Progressio, told us “the money they make from their crops may be small but that 1000 Lempiras mean a lot for those people and they can do so much with it.”

Alba lives in a basic, traditional mud brick Honduran home with her 2 year old daughter, Lourdes. They have no clean running water at the house, just a simple outdoor toilet with a towel for a door and a bucket of dirty water to wash. Mosquitos are abundant here, while we worked we were bitten profusely, and Lourdes’ arms were covered in old bites which made her scratch and cry.

When we asked her what her plans for the future were, Alba told us that she thought she would always live and work in her community near Marcala, but her daughter’s father lives in the capital city, Tegulcigalpa. “If he takes us there to live, we’ll go.” This shocked us a bit as, although life is clearly very challenging here, Tegulcigalpa is a very dangerous city, where jobs are scarce and many neighbourhoods are no more than shanty towns run by violent gangs. This highlights the problem of rural to urban migration in developing countries. For this reason, Progressio and COMUCAP are trying to show women like Alba that they can make a successful living on their small holdings and stay living in safer rural communities.

Jointly written with Alice Pepper for Progressio, interview translated by Katie Sims. 

COMUCAP: Empowering rural women

Gender inequality is a big problem in Honduras; the conservative, Catholic social structure introduced by Spanish colonialism has created a misogynistic society so women are seen as lower than men, even the work they do is considered to be inferior. Yet in reality women perform a large portion of the work and provide for the family. According to a recent study from the International Labour Organisation, “Decent work for women is also a precondition for economic development since, in the long run, economics cannot afford to ignore an untapped resource such as that which could be offered by female labour.”

Progressio is helping by teaming with local organisations in Honduras such as COMUCAP, who they've been working with for three years. COMUCAP stands for Cooperativade Mujers Campesinas de La Paz (Cooperative of rural women of La Paz) and it is made up of 259 women, divided into 16 divisions across the La Paz region, bringing together women of the indigenous Lenca community. They provide technology and land for the women of the community to work on collectively. COMUCAP’s social objective is to promote equality of leadership and economic opportunities working towards self-sustainability and the protection of the environment. The women have been taught how to use all their resources, including making their own organic fertilisers, which in turn helps them to grow better quality produce and is better for their health. COMUCAP has collective farms but is planning for women to buy their own plots from the organisation, which will ensure that they will get more money in the long run. If the women farm their own land then they will have more of a sense of ownership, have more pride in their work and be able to provide better for their families. Furthermore, the income the women are earning as a result of their new skills is changing their lives and those of their families. For example, all the children of COMUCAP women now go to school, which is rare in a rural Honduran community.

COMUCAP women produce a wide variety of products, such as coffee and aloe vera. 95% of COMUCAP income is from coffee, which is FLO-Certified. This means that the women get a regular price which helps if the market price is low. In the last five years prices have plummeted so the women have been receiving less money for their produce. The products are sold worldwide; Aloe Vera is currently sold to Switzerland, Italy and the US, whilst the coffee is sold in Germany and also the US.

As we are volunteering with Progressio, we are helping COMUCAP farmer Alba to harvest her carrot crop which, without our help, would take her weeks instead of days as we are providing resources she wouldn't normally have access to. This means that she will have more time to spend with her young family and have the on-going support from COMUCAP.

Written jointly with Alice Pepper for Progressio

'They kill us because we are a woman'

Buenos día desde Honduras!

I'm going to follow on from my last post, it was getting a bit long so I'll continue here with a brief description of femicide and the horrific crisis of homicide in Honduras. In Honduras, on average, 85.5 out of 100,000 people are murdered a year (see the map below for the official statistics). To put this into context, Britain has 1.2 murders per 100,000 people. The definition of femicide is 'the intentional homicide or violence against women purely for gender reasons.' - "they kill us because we are a woman."

In Honduras in the 7 years between 2005 and 2011 femicide increased by 192.6%, this translates as 1 woman killed every 17 hours. Statistically, despite the high rate of gang violence, more women are killed than men. Furthermore, due to corruption, there is very little police help. Only about 6% of femicide cases are investigated and only about 2% are taken to court. This is because of a lot of impunity for men, especially as many officials are involved in the crimes which affect women, such as human trafficking and prostitution. Further to this, there is a lot of resistance from the government to 'clean up' the police system. 

There are several reasons women are targeted by men, often to enforce their masculinity in the home. As I stated in my last post women are seen to be 'owned' by the men in their lives. Her sexuality, time and space is controlled, for example what she does, wears and where she goes. In this society, this is what is considered to be 'love'. In order for this problem to be changed the whole of society needs to address it. The work of women's charities, such as some of the organisations I will be volunteering with in the next few weeks, are starting to make changes from the base of society, by giving women greater opportunities.

El Problema de la Violencia de Género y el Feminicidio en Honduras

Hola from Honduras! I have been in this beautiful and intense country for just 4 days now. My group and I are staying about half an hour away from the capital city, Tegucigalpa. We are having a week of training before going to the small town Marcala, in the La Paz region next week to begin our volunteering work. I shall update on this in the near future.

Today, we had a seminar on women in Honduras by Zoila Madrid, a university professor in Tegucigalpa. This included their place in society and the issues they face. Although this closely relates to feminist ideology I have written about before I thought it was important to provide a bit of a background on gender violence with a focus on Honduras specifically.

Gender discrimination is deep rooted in Honduran, and most Latin American, society, stemming back from colonial influences of Spain and Britain. This occidental culture, Westernised ideology, was brought by the colonisers through their strong faith in the Catholic church and patriarchal social structures. Even now, a couple of hundred years later, this is still the dominant thought process. The divide between masculinity and femininity is rife in all aspects of life, the man is the dominator, he oppresses the female. However, Zoila argued that this is not sustainable, society cannot prosper like this. Only now, with the rise of women's organisations, these social structures are being challenged.

Gender has a much broader meaning than just the male and the female, it represents characteristics which are  inherent in each of us (nurturing, caring) and dictates the roles men and women take on (for example, the woman looks after the children, cooks and cleans). Yet sex defines the fundamental differences between us both, physically and mentally. These differences are translated into inequality. "Being different isn't the problem, being unequal is the problem. Especially when this translates to poverty and violence." It is arguable that what affects one sex will affect the other because of a certain interrelationship between the two. The characteristic of giving birth is biological but the responsibility of raising the child is a social gender construction. Yet both men and women are responsible for the conception of children.

In Honduras, the roles of men and women are not seen to be of the same value. To the extent that if a man was to do a traditional woman's role he is seen to be less masculine and is ridiculed or ostracised. For this reason the mother does not encourage male family members to take on roles, such as child care, cooking or cleaning. Men need to be seen as masculine and doing feminine roles shows weakness. In the same way women who challenge their own gender role and take on work in politics, for example, are ridiculed for not being feminine and can be isolated from society themselves.

This relates to the male/female divide. Man is the public whereas woman represent the private. Traditionally the man is supposed to be the provider while the woman stays at home. However, this is where the system is flawed in Honduras, in particular, as in reality women often provide for the family in fields or factories. Which, in turn might be the reason for the increase in violence in women, in a way to regain a certain level or masculinity and control.

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition" Timothy Leary

A fantastic article about how women are hated, not just through Africa and the Middle East but also worldwide. As the article points out, the USA is yet to elect a female president, the glass ceiling still very much exists, it's just not openly acknowledged any more. Yes we can have women in the cabinet or high up in office in the US but we can't let them take the wheel because women are weak, they'll probably stop to ask directions! 

In the wake of Oscar Pistorius' shooting of his girlfriend, whether intentional or not, brought up the reality of gun crime and violence against women in South Africa. As CNN said: "On the same day that thousands of women stood up to participate in One Billion Rising, billed as the largest mass action to stop violence against women and girls, the sad news came from South Africa that yet another woman was killed." High profile cases like this do reach the international media eye, but every day violence does go unnoticed, in some ways it is just seen as part of everyday life. Even here in the UK it is unthinkable of a woman to go out alone in the early hours, it is taken for granted that there is danger waiting around every corner.

The only time this is going to end is when it is not 'One Billion Rising' but Seven Billion people stopping violence against women. This of course is a completely unrealistic target! Where there is misogyny there will always be a sense of dominance over women (bare in mind that it is not just men who believe in the concept that women are lower beings).