The roles and effectiveness of grassroots empowerment programs
To reach out to rural Nigerian women, a grassroots framework that incorporates their social class, participation and voices during the formative stages of these empowerment programs is needed. This should include their culture and religion, which is often passed down to future generations, to make the program sustainable (Akpan, 2015).Women’s empowerment programs in Nigeria must also be relevant to indigenous people. They should be indigenously conceived and culturally delivered to meet the local needs of the people. Empowerment programs that are indigenous use local resources to solve the problems confronting women, and locate their interests for their personal development which
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An indigenous approach by an entrepreneur to empower these women in the production of shea butter was a huge success. She encouraged and trained the women to expand their scope on the use of the local plant product for beauty and skin treatments. The women were organized into community based cooperative center, which started to mass-produce shea butter for commercial use. The shea butter plants were from their farms and with just some support and a supply of basic locally manufactured and improvised equipment, they were able to increase production for businesses. With consistent training, they improved the quality of the product, which has alleviated poverty among the women and given them financial empowerment (Essiet, 2015).
In the same way, grassroots empowerment programs should increase access to education and skill acquisition. This will be relevant to many rural Nigerian girls who often drop out of school due to local cultural practices, which include early marriage and unwanted pregnancies, family caregiving, sanitary issues, and health issues related to poverty. Such grassroots programs should be affordable with adequate infrastructural support that meets the rural environment. This will translate to the needs of the women and girls in this strata (Zaid&Popoola,
Seth M. Holmes is the anthropologist behind the work Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies. This book is about an almost hidden world of migrant farm laborers in the USA. This group of hidden people is responsible for providing the United States with fresh fruit and for very little money and poor living conditions. Holmes has written this ethnography to shed light on the downside of agribusiness while showcasing the physical and social problems Mexican workers face in Washington and California while working in the fields providing the United States with fruit. Chapter 1 of Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies details the author’s trip from Oaxaca, Mexico to the border of the United States.
The Muscogee (Creek) Nation community and the Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative have both worked together to continue the elements of wellness and community health, seed sovereignty and biodiversity, youth voices, intergenerational knowledge transfer, and culture and language of indigenous food sovereignty within their community to achieve complete indigenous food sovereignty. First, it is important to cover the natural environment of the traditional lands of the Muscogee to understand the means on how they use to grow traditional foods before discussing wellness and community health. On the Muscogee Nation government website, they state that the Muscogee “built expansive towns within these same broad river valleys in the present states of Alabama, Georgia, Florid and South Carolina” (Muscogee (Creek) Nation). These river valleys provided a heavy supply of fertile soil and water, which are essential to produce crops.
Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture (BRWIA) is an organization that works to promote awareness and works to strengthen the High Country’s local food system by supporting those women who are involved with agriculture ("Who We Are - Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture", 2013). BRWIA supports those women and their families by providing education, resources, and skills related to sustainable food and agriculture ("Who We Are - Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture", 2013). In their mission statement, BRWIA is able to accomplish their goals by “providing opportunities for women farmers to share knowledge, hosting a Farm Tour, providing opportunities for consumers to learn about self-sufficiency and connecting everyone to our local agricultural heritage and landscape” ("Who We Are - Blue Ridge Women in
The article “Life on the Global Assembly Line” by Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes talks about how women’s are being exploited in the Third World countries. It discusses that an American worker earns a large sum of money as compared to a Third World worker, doing to the same job. Women mostly occupy the boring and painstaking jobs in the factory. Ehrenreich explains that the working conditions for the factories are very poor; therefore twenty girls live together in one room at the some places. Work places are not just congested, but are also littered with hazards.
As a community nutritionist, I developed a feel and confidence for how to educate and counsel community members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe as part of the Diabetes Prevention and Treatment Program. I am a Native American and part of this tribe and therefore was so enthused to be part of their health care team. Being fresh out of college and given only a vague idea of the expectations of the position, I gathered all my available resources and set about the task of independently creating a successful education and counseling program. As I learned the ropes and increased my knowledge base, I felt the need to develop healthy cooking classes for my clients. The goal was to show my clients how to cook delicious, affordable and nutrient dense meals while catering to their specific culture preferences.
One of the two most prominent fights for civil rights for specific communities in the 20th century in the United States were the Women's Suffrage Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. The Women’s Suffrage Movement advocated for the right to vote for women living in the United States of America. The Civil Rights movement faced the systematic suppression and oppression of African-Americans and utilized various different techniques of non-violent in order to overcome the system set against them. While there are many similarities and differences of both movements that were instrumental in the correct way to fight oppression, both utilized non-violent intentions and techniques to overcome their obstacles.
In the essay “The Common Elements of Oppression” from Suzanne Pharr’s book Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism we learn about the different types of oppression. While watching the film Milk (2008) many of those elements of oppression are being strongly depicted. Throughout this piece examples will be given on how the film depicts three of those elements as described in Pharr’s book. The three elements of oppression that were the strongest in the film are: a defined norm, stereotyping and isolation.
As the Latino population of the United States continues to burgeon, so does its influence in all aspects of American society. The far-reaching influence of Latinos has exploded in the past few decades, with 17% of the U.S. population who identify as Latino controlling over $1.5 trillion USD in spending power. A section of society where Latino influence continues to rise is in the American political process and the formation of public policy. Latinos have managed to fill a vacant position in nearly every spot of government, culminating with a U.S. Latino holding a crucial stake in a fierce battle for the presidency. As Latinos continue to grow in size and influence, attention should be invested in promoting civic engagement and enhancing political representation of Latinos at all levels of government.
In turn, women began to seek participation in the development process, confronting violence and various other human rights abuses (Snarr, 2012). Overall, the interaction of women’s networks in development, made institutions acknowledge that development can’t be only measured in terms of GDP and GNI rates, but in terms of human rights and social development. This chapter’s discussion on women and development is directly related to poverty and economic issues. The most used measure of defining poverty is by comparing national income with the GNI (Snarr,
A barren wasteland consisting of no healthy food options, or even a market where you can at least have a choice on what you eat, seems to be impossible to come by. Fast food and convenience stores along with gas stations have become toxic oasis’s in these deserts. Such stores prove to be the only markets in the area that supply food. Despite the areas being mainly low income, prices for produce are steep. Causing families to either plan
Also, people are beginning to demand locally grown organic food; however, the availability of fresh food is not universal. Furthermore, inequality exists, in terms of accessibility to healthful, affordable, and culturally acceptable
Vulnerable populations are those with a greater risk of developing health conditions. These groups may have difficulty accessing healthcare because of sociocultural status, limited economic resources, geographic, or characteristics such as age, gender (****). This separation puts members of these groups at risk for not obtaining necessary medical care and thus creates a possible threat to their health. Vulnerable populations include some group like chronically ill, people with HIV/AIDS, mentally ill and disabilities, substance abusers and homeless groups population. For example, disadvantaged and poor working individuals who are unable to obtain health care due to their immigrant status also ethnic minority groups, typically discriminated against even though they have successful careers, higher education and
The people of La Bamba made their own dairy products, meat, and bread. The gardens of the local women supplied the town with fruit and vegetables. This small town was largely dependant on themselves and nearly untouched by the outside world. This
Although food is available in the local markets persons especially the vulnerable are unable to purchase the basic food item. Due to the current economic crisis Jamaicans are experiencing some form of loss of income or income generation opportunities or employment are therefore lack the purchasing power needed to access healthy affordable food This lack of access to food can result in hunger (food deprivation), malnutrition (deficiencies, imbalances, or excesses of nutrients), and famine. Hunger has a negative impact on a person’s wellbeing as it reduces natural defences against diseases, which is the main risk factor for illness worldwide. In addition high food price is of utmost concern to
How do you define the harshness of society? Social Justice and Poverty is a hard concept to analyze when one does not have a clear understanding of the social justice structure and why most people living in poverty remain poor. Looking beyond the aspects of what causes everyday circumstances and situations, society must become more well-rounded to people living in poverty are lacking their everyday hierarchical needs. In a world with people who are very rich and people who are very poor, society tends to put their focus on making the rich richer. Poverty has swept over many cities, states and countries with low unemployment rates, child hunger, economic violence, homelessness, and major social class issues.