I did warn last month that November is hideously hectic. So busy, I've had zero time to blog for several weeks. And now it's December and Christmas is upon us...
The rare slivers of downtime I have managed to steal - usually between 10.55 and 11 at night - have been spent with a ratty-looking paperback being passed around a group of gals from my church.
It's Half the Sky, a meticulously researched and thoughtfully compiled global call-to-action to educate and empower girls. It's not a soapbox and it doesn't preach. Rather, husband-and-wife New York Times journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn lay down the facts on the undeniable economic, social and health benefits of valuing girls and giving them a hand up.
They share account after account of women in impoverished nations overcoming sexual imprisonment, life-threatening physical neglect and sheer powerlessness through education and practical economic development. At the risk of cutting across Christmas cheer and getting a little strident, I'd like to share one such account, to remind those of us who live genuinely free here in Australia that there is still much to do elsewhere in the world. While Aussie women may bump their heads on glass ceilings in the workplace, we're not deprived of education, choices, rights and voices simply for being born with a uterus.
Such was the case for Goretti, an uneducated 35-year-old mother of six in rural Burundi in central Africa. Robbed of all personal freedom by an over-bearing husband, she was forbidden to leave their clay hut without him. Even though she was forced to haul heavy grocery bags home from the market, she had never handled anything more than the equivalent of 10 cents, such was the control her husband maintained.
Her life was dramatically transformed when she encountered the American aid organisation, CARE. The organisation forms village associations of about 20 women, who band together to improve their quality of life. Goretti boldly attended her first CARE meeting after encouragement from older female relatives who had seen first-hand the benefits of the female networks. Each woman brings the equivalent of 10 cents (the most, like Goretti, many can lay their hands on), which is pooled and loaned to members, who must invest it in a money-making enterprise and repay the loan with interest. Goretti invested her small loan in a bag of fertiliser, which helped produce a bumper crop of spuds.
Before too long, Goretti was making and selling banana beer, and contributing way more to the household than her abusive husband. The irony was that her husband previously blew about 30 per cent of the family income on similar beer at the local bar. But when he saw how much Goretti's independence and business improved their family's living situation, he not only allowed her to carry on with her enterprise and learn to read and write, but resisted the urge to plunder her stock! In the end he conceded it was "better to have a partner, than a servant."
Wisely, the authors are cautionary with their optimism - and Boretti's story is not without challenges. Her success is built on the provision of beer, a source of discontent in hers and other African villages, and her existence is still heavily dependent on successful crops. But there is no question that equal access to opportunity has radically renewed her life and that of her family.
Goretti is one of millions of women living in cultures in Africa, the Middle East and Asia that will continue to wrestle with poverty, disease and violence while ever women are regarded as unequal and incapable.
If you have time over the holidays, get your hands on Half the Sky. It will stir in you a hunger for justice - and that's just the sort of thing we should be thinking about at Christmas.
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