Okay thank you for your patience. Um I know
most of you here know me better Maria Elisa Christie
. I'm director of women and gender international development at
our I. R. E. D. The
Office of International Research Education Development. So welcome to
our very first women and gender development discussion series for
this academic year. We're happy that you could join
us, including some of you who are joining on
webex from the national capital region. And I'm sorry
. We have problems getting whether it started. That's
where we started moving. All right. So there
was a sign and chief back with the bagels that
most of you signed. And then there's another board
going around here. I'm gonna send this one around
here. Yeah of course. For anybody who didn't
sign if you join our list serve. Don't worry
we won't spam you. We just send you information
about these talks two weeks before. When we before
and the day before. Yeah. And anything that's
directly relevant to gender, international and development. So
we have a great lineup for the semester were built
up all the way through april. So you can
look at our website, it's at the already website
W. G. D. D. You you
can write us and ask um I don't think www
dot org dot VT dot e D U slash W
G. D. Our next presenter just to have
that. And we do have the calendar taped on
the doors is dr Stephanie buegler from the University of
Arizona. That's on october 13th and she'll be discussing
her work on governance, livelihoods and gender issues and
run of the river hydropower project areas and rock on
India. So this presentation was supposed to last 40
minutes. Uh And then a 10 minute Q.
And a luckily we have this room reserved for another
half an hour, so we're going to be running
a little bit late. Uh However, it's okay
those of you that have to leave to just we
understand, just go ahead and leave and place the
biggest with you. All right now, what you've
all been waiting for when introduced Angela Neilan. So
Angela has been in VT since 1972 and we're very
pleased to have you join us today. She's going
to discuss in Pleasure Team not 18. Yeah.
She's going to discuss the inclusion of women in Virginia
tech international development projects over the last several decades centuries
. Um, she'll follow the progression from women being
included as an afterthought and development projects to them being
a focus in many Virginia tech development projects. Angela
has been an extension agent and state specialist for Virginia
Cooperative Extension. She has extensive international experience through Virginia
Tech Partners of the Americas and Kellogg Foundation projects.
She's lead long term projects in Mongolia Ethiopia and Armenia
and participated in projects in the Middle East, central
and South America to the Caribbean and nearby rural Appalachia
. She was the first community involvement specialist for the
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and facilitated public meetings on
controversial environmental actions, mainly related to air, water
and waste. She is currently the director of Innovates
Armenia project through Virginia Text. Org Officer. National
Research Education. Our main area of interest is Participatory
development and improving systems to ensure that diverse opinions can
be expressed heard and acted upon. So she will
share her story with you. Thank you. Thank
you very much. I appreciate it. It's nice
to be here with you. I see some familiar
faces and some new faces appreciate your coming. Um
we're a little bit of problems with the technology but
I think we'll try and catch up here. I
am going to talk about the role of women in
development projects moving from the sideline to the spotlight because
we've made some great progress here at Virginia Tech And
I know because I've been here since the 1800s.
Right. Perhaps you've seen this picture on one of
the announcements. This is Magda, she's from the
our Valley of Armenia. She's the owner and the
mastermind of the very successful 12 pond fishery operation that
you see only a part of here. She owns
the property and makes all the decisions. Yet.
My colleagues all decided to interview her husband and sons
. Mm Okay, didn't you? We're just so
as you know, Virginia Tech has been involved in
international development projects for decades. I first came from
the mountains of Western pennsylvania, which is Appalachia to
and I moved to Williamsburg, following my husband who
was an historic preservation architect for colonial Williamsburg. I
moved to Virginia 1972 and was hired as an extension
agent with cooperative extension. Yeah, my work was
to help limited resource farmers and families with their housing
, particularly. We worked with farmers home administration.
You know, the old fhe houses to get housing
where it was needed in the rural tidewater areas.
The 21 I had six paraprofessionals or extension housing technicians
. And I worked with this program for about two
years before I came back to Floyd County and became
the county extension director, which was almost unheard of
at that time. And the county board of supervisors
called me little missy. Mhm. You know,
you might remember or or maybe not. The Wiki
was the 1862 Man Grant College And Virginia State University
was 1890 Land Grant College. Together they made up
the Virginia cooperative extension system. But that was not
really an easy time. I'd like to give you
a little bit of context for the work that I'm
going to talk about, the work that I've done
over the years, because it really framed the context
here framed the work that we did, the Civil
rights Act. This is this is now on the
side. Um the civil rights Act had been passed
in the mid 19 sixties and the process of getting
these two land grant colleges together. And I remember
one was historically black Land Grant University and one was
historically white Land Grant University. This was the early
70s in Virginia. Mhm. This was an awkward
process that was charged with emotion On many sides,
Virginia State was doing more work with limited resource farmers
and families and Virginia Tech was really focused more on
production, agriculture. There was even, believe it
or not. A district 13 for all the black
farmers, extension homemakers and the for each youth clubs
. District 13. This is very quickly dissolved as
the merging of the two land grants continued. For
example, Charles city county, Charles city was a
mainly black area. In New Kent County was mainly
white. They're now Charles city. New Kent which
indicates, you know, the the They're not one
jurisdiction. This was just about the time. Give
you a little bit about my personality that my district
director from Richmond, I was living in Williamsburg told
me I had to cut my hair. Well,
I had big long curly orphan, Annie hair down
to my waist. As you can see from the
news release there. I looked at the supervisor and
told him he better talk to my lawyer about that
. Mhm. They looked at me like they've never
heard anything like that before. It's like how could
you dare? But I was a hippie from the
60s and then I even kept my last name when
I got married, much to the chagrin of Virginia
Tech. There was a line on the forum for
the new last name and I didn't show it in
. So the form was incomplete. They told me
the new computer just couldn't take a blank. So
I said then you better process life on by hand
. So, you know, this is just to
give you an idea Of the context of my participation
in women and development. Um I also worked for
10 years at the Department of Environmental Quality and Regulatory
Agency. And my job is to help facilitate very
controversial public meetings and hearings and to encourage community people
to come out and have a voice. So I'm
talking about voice. I'm talking about who can how
can we make a space that's safe for people to
say what they want to say, what they need
to say. So again for context. Another side
. I started work with Virginia Tech before computers and
even before xerox machines we have to use a video
machine and a mimeograph machine to make multiple copies.
You know c c means carbon copy. I asked
somebody today you know about carbon paper and they said
they didn't really recognize what that was. So I
mean that's progress but it really tells you that the
context that I was working in was much less technologically
advanced. We thought that the mimeograph machine was a
step up from the thermal fax machines that almost burned
your copy to a crisp mark, mark and understands
and couldn't be folded easily for mailing most of this
. You won't won't remember most of you won't remember
back that far. It's when the secretary had the
only terminal to the computer on your desk. Uploading
major reports like time and tasks or leave, but
there always had to be one signed, hard copy
signed in blue ink. And we finally got computers
on our desks. In about 1981, my work
was mostly with the low income and uh income generation
for low income rural families. And most of that
was in Floyd County right next door here. Yes
. There were Children who had to go to school
barefoot because their family couldn't afford the shoes. Those
little bloody footprints in the snow and ice nearly broke
my heart. So we worked tirelessly to get more
jobs for women. We conducted programs in home based
business and for each entrepreneurship. We did housing and
basics of growing and eating healthy foods through federally funded
programs like the F net program, extended food and
nutrition education program, federal money to help people even
better be healthier. Then we as a team of
community leaders working together, brought in a large new
nursing home in Floyd, which was very needed and
they would hire women. Okay. But what did
the women have to have in order to be hired
? That meant they needed to be trained as nursing
assistance. So we brought in the community college.
Yeah. Then we found it a women's shelter Which
was also very needed. We started implementing Virginia's child
abuse and neglect act of 1975, which a lot
of us have been involved in crafting the different types
of abuse that you could be reported for. And
that started my involvement in a lot of policy stuff
. It seemed like the only way out of bad
situations for these mountain women was paid work. So
as needs were identified, we help more women make
and grow products for their own consumption first and then
extra to south market. We develop farmers markets in
roanoke, Blacksburg for farmers to cooperatively sell their crops
. Then we helped them to organize into larger producer
groups and develop more voice in the policies. Which
of course there were many as Jonathan saying about selling
farm products. Next. At that time I was
taking classes up here several evenings a week at Virginia
Tech. And because of my work employed on my
position of county Extension director, I was asked to
serve on, I bet nobody even remembers this.
The women's network board. They had a women's network
that preceded the Women and Development Program and the board
. Um that's where Dr Laura jane harper and Doctor
P. Howard Massey started to have the ideas along
with Larkin and mary Romas to have and have the
Office of International Development and and some and some programs
with Women and Development. So we have one of
the founding mothers here with us. Well I met
mary Rose on the women's board while she was pursuing
her PhD in education. And if you don't know
mary you need to know her, look her up
. She's really amazing. She did so many things
for women in Development. She was selected as our
director and it was called the O. I.
R. D. Office Office of International Research and
Development. There was any education in there at that
point. This is a Howard Massey and the little
Reeves animal Science building chris was in the College of
Agriculture. Women were being recognized and their concerns and
issues were given some consideration. Through that women's network
forward, there's power in numbers and when they issues
were aggregated through the women's network board, they got
more time attention from the administration. Even at that
time, less than five of the full faculty here
at Virginia Tech for Women. That was a bit
longer Now, let me tell you, I've been
in Dr Massey's office many times before through a volunteer
work with partners of the americans. He had a
ticker tape machine and a world time clock and many
written project reports written. Some even hand written project
reports and documents and photos from the agricultural product projects
of the past. Not many involved women. But
let me tell you mary was going to change that
mary Rose came to Floyd to see the income generation
programs we were doing for extension. And she really
wanted to bring this group of international management women who
were trying to get some training here about management.
Women being in management at that point. They weren't
very abundant, very numerous. So of course I
said yes. And she brought 30 women from all
over the world to Little Floyd County next door.
The women on both sides enjoyed the exchange and I
thought that was the end of it. But now
mary decided that she wanted me to come to Bt
and help out in the wind office N. O
I R D. So 1983 I moved from the
county to come up to Virginia Tech is an extension
specialist in program development, program implementation, program evaluation
. So there was also the Association for Women and
Development in Washington, formed in this time frame.
Okay, nice. Dr Massey is urging and with
Virginia Tech Extension Administration Assistance including DR William Skelton.
Now, any of you who's been to skeleton,
paul Skelton, that was Dr skeleton? Who was
the big director of the extension division when I was
a young agent, he was one of my mentors
. So I applied for an international catalog fellowship.
You can imagine my surprise when I actually got the
three year fellowship. It was a north South initiative
through partners of the Americas, Virginia santa, Catarina
brazil. So I spent three years at least two
months each year traveling and working with development projects in
Mexico, central and south America and brazil. The
fellowship brought 20 of our south partners to the States
as well. We all traveled to rural Alabama,
badawi Alabama, the boundary waters and native lands of
Minnesota to do herbal and natural medicines. Then to
the mountains of southern Colombia, we're working with beans
at the CIA Research Station and then the fishing villages
and banana fields of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and
Barbados and Mexico's yucatan and Mexico city and many other
locations. I was very fortunate for me. It
was such an opportunity that I was learning in Virginia
to take things from our extension projects and try them
out during my fellowship and then to take projects from
other countries and try them out in rural Virginia.
It was a give and take back and forth and
it was an iterative process. We all learned an
awful lot. My fellowship focus was on women in
development, sanitation and water supply, food production and
consumption. I have typically worked on the cost of
production and consumption over the years. Okay. Our
goal in this farming systems Research and extension project,
which was the first one that mary rojas and john
caldwell and horticulture were able to bring in. As
you remember, our goal was to involve tobacco farmers
and families and developing new alternative crops to replace tobacco
, there was no longer being subsidized. There really
was no other crops that you could make$5,000 an
acre on set. I can think of something that
we're kind of illegal at that point. Um and
and Floyd kind of specialized in sound somewhere liquid as
well. We worked as a team in designing,
implementing and evaluating different alternatives for Washington county in southwest
Virginia and then not away in Lunenburg County is the
south side. As a result of that first project
that combined farming and family systems, we developed a
measurement for change and family nutrition to complement the net
economic benefit. The N. E. B.
That every agricultural project I've ever been involved in has
been measuring, we came up with N. N
. B. That nutritional benefit because we know people
eat what they grow up and if they're growing broccoli
, they're going to be eating broccoli. And so
what crop did they replace the broccoli with? Uh
huh. It was cabbage and I had people calling
me an extension office now, missy Neilan, I
want you to know that I've got this cabbage out
here and it's got flowers on it because cabbage and
broccoli looks kind of similar until it kind of branched
out with the flowers. So it's a brand new
crop. We had endless discussions with the families about
how their behavior and eating patterns changed with the change
from cabbage to the high value crop of broccoli,
it was high value is high nutrition value as well
. In some areas, the new crop was cherry
tomatoes, bell peppers, because guess what was new
back then? You'd never believe it solid bars.
There was a time when there were no salad bars
. So all of a sudden there was a new
opportunity for our growers of fresh vegetables. So these
new crops were successful because the farmers and their families
were involved at every step. The mary rose has
always asked how did this change in production impact the
women, time resources, money work. I noted
that the values and attitudes of Virginia tech leadership and
I mean all over the place came through in the
projects they applied for the grants they wrote. But
also those were the topics and issues that were funded
at the time. There wasn't really a lot of
thought given to women. Mostly production. Agriculture aimed
at increasing the crop yield. The green revolution with
better seeds, warren better fertilizers, soil amendments and
irrigation schemes to get adequate water to the Congress.
The grants didn't include women or ponder even the impact
on the women and the families. The focus was
on production and it was not considered successful unless the
income of the males were increased. But what often
did these? None by this increase money. Mhm
. We found they bought more pets and boomboxes and
very little of the benefit actually trickled down to the
family average out to their family. However, we
were learning through many would projects through the National WID
Office which was operational by now that there was evidence
of family benefits if the incomes of the women were
increased and what happened at the subsistence food garden was
cloud under because all the land was needed for this
production crop, that was a row crop that was
going to be sold at the market. Well,
there was no crop for the food for the family
. What if crops are irrigated by women carrying water
on their heads from the well, kilometers away,
we have projects where women were suffering. Women were
dying Because these interventions came in. Oh you can
do 10 hectares but the women couldn't keep up with
the irrigation. The negative impact on women and families
were not considered until women started being included in the
grants and proposals as the writers and as the recipients
it was the women as the target audience was acceptable
because this was viewed as extra to the major crop
production goals. Mhm. So then we have to
figure out how to involve women in the development projects
. How did we reach the women? So we
asked the men to bring their wives, their wife
or wives. We provided childcare. We provide transportation
of food. We help meetings and locations where women
felt comfortable. We explained that our purpose to the
community leaders and religious leaders was not to upset anybody
. We were just there to help the women.
We held separate meetings for women said they were free
to express themselves. We went where they were like
water points markets. We use radio messages and materials
with sensitive artwork, using stick figures or line drawings
or even drawing with a stick in the dust or
in the sand. All these considerations were more than
many of our male colleagues were willing to take to
do, they would tell me no, men are
just easier to reach. You know, it's just
easier. So women took additional effort from the very
beginning. Little limiting Then there's uh no, I
think this is the same. The woman in the
purple, if any of you recognize Dr Colette Harris
. She was a with director in the 90s.
She would ask women to arrange drawings of work according
to men's or women's work. She had pictures on
the ground. You can see the one slide and
sometimes even Children's work We observed, we conducted 24
hour time and task three calls. We tried to
find a time when the women were not so busy
and today we know all that, but it was
a new consideration at that point and we developed those
kind of considerations. We incorporated them into our approach
projects. So then, Honey, you say we
made a difference. The evaluation of participation is challenging
. What change do we measure and how, what
are the indicators of successful participation? Well, we
could count the number of women participants. It's just
a number. We could kind of figure out what
type of involvement and how meaningful it was. We
could check the actions if there was any resulting from
the women's involvement. We could organize help, see
if the women were organizing in common interest groups.
We could check and see if there are any improvements
and personal family and community finances and health. We
should also take into consideration the unintended consequences because they
can be both good and bad. Example of that
is when I was in Africa and Ethiopia, we
introduced these new stoves and because they were cooking on
the solar cook stoves outside, the insects in the
thatched roof were able to proliferate because they were killed
by the smoke from the fire. So from one
problem you solve one And yet developed another one.
So my question is where all the project records the
archives of so much of this work done and lessons
learned. It's not to be found before. Things
were on the computer and digitized. We had parasols
, we had slide shows and we had scripts but
their materials and they sit in somebody's office or they
resign up in Washington. And some kind of archives
for U. S. D. A. But
I really want to talk to the archivist from the
library because she's interested in looking around trying to find
some of these things. I this slide is blank
because there were so many projects I couldn't find a
record of, you know, I knew of them
, but I couldn't really find them. So yes
, as we discussed involvement and participation, we realized
there really were some models out there that could help
us to evaluate the participation of them. Now,
I'd like to present the conceptual framework that comes from
the International Institute of Public participation IA. P two
. This was adopted by some of our federal agencies
in the late 1900s to thousands and I used it
in my work with the regulatory agency um to analyze
the level of participation in the community residence in public
hearings. Of course, that was after my first
failed attempt to retire in 2000 2002 with this model
. This model includes the quality of involvement and the
quality increases as the level goes higher, moving women's
participation from sidelines to spotlight. First, I'll give
you an overview of this model and then I'll explain
how some of the BT projects I knew I was
participating and fit into this model. Yeah, yeah
. The first and most basic type of involvement is
one way aimed at a target audience with the goal
of getting a message across. The expert is the
sage on the stage. And you know, a
lot of lot of faculty, a lot of development
professionals like that, they have an important message.
So they'll tell the people who need to know in
the best way to get that message across. For
example, if the water is contaminated, you can't
fish there, Oh thank you. So a poster
or flyer saying no fishing would be a one way
message just where the experts do what we tell you
to. Yeah, in the second level is a
two way participation where the recipient of the message response
or completes a survey, answers questions, there's a
back and forth and at this level, party participation
adds a little meaning because there's some communication back and
forth and the size of these circles get larger as
you go up because they have more meaning. Every
step is in an advance in level of meaning of
the participation. The third level is cooperation where several
come together to meet common goals. This is a
group with common interests who cooperate for example to sell
their produce. It could be a focus group to
discover more about how long it takes to gather water
each day or to actually do something about the water
points. If they actually take action that goes to
the next level, which is collaboration. This is
where people don't necessarily have the same goals, but
they find common ground, they have to work co
labor and they're trying to meet some of their goals
. But finding the common ground, they could build
a market or a school, they share decisions,
they make compromises and they come to agreement or consensus
on the final level. It's a hard one to
get to. We often don't want to let go
of the control. But the fifth level, his
delegation where people are empowered to act with authority,
such as a leadership or advisory group that has power
to enforce their guidance. The expert is only a
guide on the side. You know, the spotlight
is on the women, the participant or this could
be a committee that has resources and authority to enforce
the closures at water points, I thought it was
interesting that kill kill means forbidden in Ethiopian amharic killed
killed, so you can't go in this enclosure because
these trees are for the future at this level,
policies can be developed by those who are affected and
not by some experts from something else. With the
increased acceptance of and even the expectation of qualitative research
. Um, this type of involvement has grown true
, genuine involvement. Larkin and I've done a lot
of this means that participants have voiced, they have
more voices. You brought the levels of participation and
the women have become more important and louder and heard
. So I'm offering you this this model by AP
two to look at participation, not just of women
. I mean it's it's a good model, no
matter what I used it to analyze women's participation so
we can ask and answer these questions by using the
model. Are women simply the recipients of the information
? Do women provide input and discuss the development,
discuss things with the development professionals? Do women cooperate
by joining together to meet common goals? Do women
collaborate with the give and take compromise and reach a
consensus? Are women strengthened to act on their own
behalf through delegation of group power and decision making authority
that would be in the spotlight? Okay, now
what I'm gonna do is go through and give you
some examples of projects at each one of these levels
. And then I just have a few slides at
the end to show you some pictures. So A
level one, this is informed. Women are only
an afterthought. They're included sometimes by accident they accompany
their husbands, their told what to do. The
recipients of the message like farm field dish showing the
use of manure for methane gas production. They can't
really talk because the field days aren't really for them
. They might have ideas. Generally they have um
why not have separate field days for the women so
they can have their voice. You know many and
also many well intentioned religious organizations come in and do
something for the recipients. It's a good thing like
vaccinate Children or build a school. If those needs
were identified by the people then it's a response to
those needs. You know if it's just us coming
in and doing some good work it's level one.
So it's not just communication services as well. The
participants are the recipients of the aid. And assistance
is the result of top down decisions and expert model
, do what the experts tell you to do.
Sometimes that's critical like with zika or Ebola or some
of the really bad health situations. So every level
has an appropriate use. It's been my experience working
in the former soviet education system that The educational systems
top down one directional recipients are viewed as empty vessels
to be filled. One of our current innovate Armenia
project goals is to increase the involvement of the students
primarily in the aggravated teaching center. This is an
Armenian. We know from our research that students who
have hands on learning experience is retained the material better
. But I don't see that when I go to
the universities and other transition countries. Mhm. Laboratory
experiences are quite new for the Enology and viticulture wine
Academy program that we're helping with and the food science
specialty that we at Virginia Tech and Penn State are
establishing at the Agrarian University. The students, mainly
female. They're moving more towards the main line from
the sidelines because they participate in this and they're learning
It's more two way. Here's another example of tangier
island example. You know, you know where to
change your island is something Delta ville and ultra Costa
northern neck, southern part of Northern Neck. Tangier
island. There was no there was fish waste all
over the island and no one was cleaning up the
environment was suffering. Extension of volunteer groups have not
been successful, was causing health problems that was obnoxious
. You couldn't stand the smell. And they made
a lot of efforts to clean up the island.
But finally one woman said it's in the bible that
we should be good stewards of our lands. So
she went to the local minister's wife, who then
impressed the topic on her husband, who included Stewart
stewardship in a sermon that sunday. one way information
from a powerful community figure and stewardship became the operative
term on tangier island. This island was cleaned up
within several weeks and as a case study for many
environmental education programs because it was said from the folder
stewardship, you need to do that. It's a
good thing. Now. The second level is to
consult an example here would be United Nations funded exchange
of rural development agents. I used to one woman
from Oviedo Spain Oviedo on my farm and I showed
her some of our ways and she showed me some
photos of hers. We talked to minimal english and
she shared the concerns that her women were having.
So we were talking together, consultants are participation on
the second level. They were having a very difficult
time coming up with the money to support their daughters
dowries. She was trying to do training and handicrafts
and other economic development methods, but the expectation was
cultural that, you know, mothers should have all
these things for their daughters calories. Um so the
as a result, we showed her some of the
community income generation projects like joining together and having a
common market on parkway, we were unemployed. She
had never thought of cooperating to bring more money to
more families. So we pushed that participation up to
third level, which is cooperation where they obtain common
goals when she got back to spain. Mhm.
This third level cooperating together the farming systems was a
good example of cooperation because many of the rural Appalachian
farmers were facing the phase out of subsidies, they
had common interest. They wanted to find alternatives.
They worked together to discuss their common situation and find
acceptable alternatives. This cooperation evolved up to a level
four collaboration Over time, these kind of things take
time and now there's a huge warehouse at I-77 and
I-81 for storage of vegetables for a regional market.
You're probably past clients. Cooperation was also needed in
yucatan Mexico and the university where specialists are trying to
help farmers grow an alternative to sisal. It's really
called hanukkah, but I can't translate. I think
it's nice um, since Nylon was not replacing their
sisal for marine ropes and fish nets, the farmers
, many of them women had a common problem and
they were willing to cooperate in finding answers. Again
, they expected level one involvement where the experts would
come in and just tell them what to do and
they would do it. But this project required focus
groups and force them into collaboration and they came up
some really good alternatives. They started a address factory
to make fancy dresses for the little girls in Mexico
City. Another example of cooperative involvement comes from Cardi
, Caribbean Agriculture Research and Development Institute. I was
working with women who cut harvest and box bananas and
we learned that the boxing plant employees and executives were
expecting sexual privileges from the women in return for taking
their boxes on board the export ship. We gathered
the women, we discussed, we found this to
their common problem. It was not just once in
a while and all the women wanted to resolve it
. So together the researchers and the women developed an
alternative process for drying their bananas and we put them
into powder and ships and we ship them to the
baby food and cereal market, bypassed the boxing club
all together. Sometimes that's going to change. It
was required. Okay, the fourth level is collaboration
at this point. It's a more advanced level of
participation. The women identify the problems and find their
own common ground. They develop alternatives. They arrive
at a group consensus about the preferred solution. This
takes more time, and it means co laboring and
there's a lot of conflict so that everyone understands what
the agreement is and what the common ground is now
. Participatory decision making can be time consuming and arouse
conflict, but they try to focus on what's in
common collaboration between Mongolia and Virginia resulted in exchanges of
extension agents and sewing factory women and products from Dickinson
County with Mongolia families. United Nations Development Programme funded
this project and aim to bring women together despite the
language and culture barriers to exchange experiences of working with
environment industry. Southwest Virginia's a lot has had not
so much anymore, but tremendously successful income generating garment
industry. So an american dress shirt company can use
them to be exact say that. But Was exploring
the possibilities of establishment factory in the capital city of
one battery. Of course, mary knows what I'm
talking about. She was in Mongolia for quite a
while. As a result, many of the community
leaders hosted visitors in their homes and the ambassador from
Mongolia paid a visit to this to give clintwood Virginia
. That was really something for these people. Above
all, he enjoyed the bluegrass music and flatfoot dancing
. This project lasted over a period of years,
only six or 7 years. And deep friendships still
continue. And I have to just tell you one
little thing here when the ambassador's car pulled into the
gas station, owner of the gas station is one
of the real wealthy guys in the Kanye. All
blue overall. Now I'm missing communist. Mhm.
We don't really know how to put down this license
plate on the bill. And I said mom this
is the ambassador that's a that's a diplomatic. Our
ambassador just this is the ambassador from Mongolia. You
slapped his leg and he goes, well my brother
is the king of Siam. It just did not
believe. And on this side of the picture,
okay thank you. I have five minutes. I'm
going to try and speak through here. The picture
with the Virginia tech banner. The woman under the
banner is the ambassador. She's the U. S
. Ambassador to Mongolia. And these other two are
part of the Institution for administration and management development and
we were working to strengthen their institution and then there's
a rural house. Yeah. The man Okay.
The fifth level places final decision making. In the
hands of the participants. The women are the spotlight
, the expert is the guide on the side.
You have one from Sage on the stage to guide
on the side from side lines to speak. Yeah
. An Appalachian Virginia example comes to mind at this
level of participation. We had a group of 10
healthcare workers in southwest Virginia and a group of 10
Virginia tech women. We were researchers. We got
together through the Tennessee Valley Authority funding. So trying
to give you the idea that you don't just have
to go to U. S. A. I
. D. For funds. There's other funding sources
and to diversify your portfolio, we conducted focus groups
and women concerned with their health issues. It was
cancer. The team of both local and campus researchers
analyzed the data from the focus groups and they said
, we don't want everybody coming here telling us we
have lots of problems we want to play. We
want a play, we want a play. So
I'm sitting there going, I'm not the person to
play. So I came and we had a faculty
member who had expertise in reader's theatre. She developed
scripts from the focus groups and these were read in
doctor's offices and medical schools and even at the National
Institute of Health by the women. They took charge
and they did it. Um they took full control
of the project and the results. And the best
thing is the initiated scholarship fund to send a local
gal to medical school with the promise that she'd come
back and be served her rural Appalachian community. They
were comfortable with her. The campus researchers were thrilled
to be the guy on the side with that.
Right. And I think all our international development projects
could be assigned to one participation level or another.
Um, analyzing women's participation from level one to level
five helps us to benchmark and improve the involvement.
So it becomes more meaningful. The researchers and the
participants and the higher you get on the levels of
involvement more meaningful it is. So as you develop
projects as you write grants, think about how involved
you can get the women and just how meaningful it
will be for your research and for the women themselves
. Now I have just a few slides with some
messages and it's real important for you and other women
to stay at the table. It can be uncomfortable
, but when you're there you're a force to be
reckoned with. Stay at the table may not even
be coming up with. That was like 100 and
10 degree heat out in the middle of Southside Virginia
. But we have women keep good records. Like
I said, some of the archives are missing appreciate
and enjoy the culture. This is from Armenia and
from Mongolia. Not from Ethiopia. Okay. Include
the young and the old. Lighten the burden on
women and girls. They carry things on their backs
all the time. By the time they're 40 there
bent over like this prominent dent in their back improve
conditions for women who work in factories. The cheers
, they sound unreturnable. So we got them to
get the chairs help with the work there. I
am milking a yak find and extend markets for women's
products. Yeah, Take a long view. Have
an orange circle around that little section that says Virginia
Tech on the sign. We started that project in
2002 and I have been back to Ethiopia to this
watershed than Kadima Every two years until 2014. And
that project is still going. Those water lines are
still working, the women are still cooperating and delivering
the water. It's amazing. So you have to
can't just evaluate in one year, go where the
people are the field or the the home, reward
your participants. You see certificates mean a whole lot
more to them than you think to a lot of
us. So ask them what's every working. Mhm
. Network with other professionals. These are United Nations
women and development experts at a UID Association for Women
and Development conference. Continue research into better crops and
marketable products. Yeah. Go around the obstacles.
Don't give up. I love that sign. Mhm
. Smell the roses. Those rose petals were made
into a special rose jelly at the factory in Armenia
tell your story. That's my message to do his
story. plus her story. It was our story
, our story altogether. And so I told you
a lot about my story. Mhm. Um You
know what tell your story, each of you has
won just as valuable as mine today. To remind
you of this. I am a little blue bottle
sparkly fingernail polish. A native american came up to
me at a story festival and painted my little finger
with blue polish and said, this is a reminder
to tell your story. So as my reminder to
you maybe is developed, would you help if you
don't put on your finger nail, you can put
it on a you know in your cell phone,
put it on a piece of paper. But this
little blue sparkle should help you to remember to tell
your story to. I'm not the only one with
the story. So in honor of all of our
stories, I ask you to paint your fingernail and
pass it on. You know maybe we need our
own women and gender storycorps. Mhm. I get
from the project. Mhm. Don't forget to thank
your sponsors and your funding sources. Mhm. No
we can go into a discussion question and answer.
Sorry I went so fast. I hope that I
do so since it's 1 30. I know some
of you have to go like I said we have
we have some more time left. Um Kay but
I don't know if you can open this box again
. Actually I think the way this is finished now
um Let me just say something in case people are
leaving. So we have a we have a short
survey. We're going to send it out to you
by email. Please fill it out and through Webex
you'll also be redirected to the survey right after this
event. It's really helpful for us to know not
only that the webex wasn't working, but uh input
, you know, topics you're interested in and so
on, grab bagels on your way out. If
you had a water bottle, there's a recycling bin
right outside there and I'm gonna officially close this.
But you're welcome to say welcome to come out questions
discussion. Whoever wants to say thank you. Let
me just mention that I brought some of the products
from some of these women and income generation. This
is like a shoe holder, but it's kind of
an organizer. I use it for male and thanks
to put on the back and they make every piece
of this fabric. This is Ethiopia. Yeah.
And this is paper from uh Costa rica. I
was working with uh Kellogg project Earth North University and
all the banana leaves. We'll go into the side
, we're trying to figure out what can we do
with us banana leaves. So they started making these
lovely parts are very heavy and luff. But what
we eventually live with our researchers here at Virginia Tech
was find that we could prove these and use them
as sound proofing for music studios for hotel rooms.
And it's a very good not real flammable too.
So, um Rhodri is here and I just brought
this to show you. This is a mimeographed that's
called Digital machine or mimeograph machine. For those a
few more much younger than I. This is the
kind of materials that we used to get to help
us work with women in development and what just went
on typewriting. So thank you for the advances in
technology. Do you have any questions? Any comments
? It's anybody have any questions or comments? Look
, oh, the project in Armenia is um it's
at the request of the mission. So it's Armenian
money driven and they have asked us for some help
and sustainability for a small agribusiness college, so to
speak. So we're working with curriculum, we're working
with a budget, we're working with the faculty development
, we're working with the transparency or lack thereof.
You know, it's, it's kind of an institutional
strengthening to the Agricultural College, but it's one particular
part of the college, there's a real interesting project
. Want to come go with Denise has been there
. She'll tell you. Come on questions, comments
. It's your race is the biggest Yeah. Yes
. System. Place specific, for example. Mhm
. Depends on where you are. But one of
the things that I find is that we've created jobs
for women and then childcare becomes an issue. So
a lot of places where I go, the taking
care of the Children either prevents them from working or
is a problem if they are working, there's no
like organized childcare system and you know, they took
their kids to work or you know, they come
to different workshops and um I was at one where
a little child, it was a concrete floor,
it was no big deal, but a little child
did their business on the floor and I saw all
the americans gone and all the foreigners have gone big
deal. So they're pretty used to kids coming along
, but it's one of the reasons that women don't
. So, I mean, what do you all
think? What's the biggest problem? What do you
think? Mhm. Yeah, well, it's kind
of sad since this is the kind of work I
do now, I think she wrote on, there
are the same things I right now it's like the
exact same obstacles and it's like, come on figure
out when is the right time to fight within.
So well though I was at an event, there
have been several all over the world example, molly
for instance, You go to a village, you
go at 8:00 AM, which is not the time
women are available, they're all making breakfast and we
, and, and we've told the community, sometimes
the village leaders won't, I can't imagine why we
would want to talk to women so they won't invite
the women. So we have sent the message that
we want to invite them. Sometimes it's our host
country collaborators in the National Research Institutes or the faculty
who are graduate students who really don't want to,
they want their schedule to be a priority. I
don't want to go on a saturday, which is
for instance, in Bolivia where the woman said for
a food processing value chain, I remember was potato
, but the crop that we're working with, they
said, well we can participate training on Saturdays because
the days you guys come is a market day,
that's what we sell. We can never ever meet
with the students refused to change. They they went
out there because they don't work on Saturdays, neither
do the state institutions, so it's like, come
on, I mean over and over if you want
people to participate, I mean if you're there to
improve the situation, Women are half the population and
in addition, they may be the ones doing most
of the work and whatever your project is or have
the unintended impact of creating world work. To the
point that the projects unsustainable because they really can't work
24 hours a day, so the project will collapse
. So childcare never, ever, ever provided,
It's never um, you know, feeding people,
it's so important to feed people and I found when
we have focus groups that we often do that are
four hours long, you need to have a snack
, but often we want to have a meal cooked
and and pay people to prepare it. But that
means that half the women will leave the focus group
to go cook. So in different countries, there's
a different method for, because we never work in
any country, South Virginia tech by ourselves, right
. We work with Ankara University in Uganda with uh
, carry kenya researches in kenya. And so we
never, it's not matching jackets with our partners.
And so we always do the way they do things
right? And so for instance, in Ecuador,
they take little bag lunch in Uganda, We bought
things off the bicycle that was riding by with fruit
and some kind of cake and which is what people
are used to eating. So it depends on you
have to be adjusting to local situation. But you
also can't assume that the local partners, everything about
women and so so it's just sad. I mean
the slide that you have that listed all the things
that you need to do. They're still not being
done and I'm still telling those same things. And
it just could have been my slides from the last
10 years. So I think accountability is an issue
like where you know, there needs to be stronger
accountability in U. S. A. D.
Has a lot of words about increasing words, but
in the end they want scientists to kill bugs.
They really don't care about gender. I'm sorry.
No one's on whether it's out there you want,
but what you're coming one, you mentioned time caring
deposit. And is it when I think about got
to do you think this is an issue on this
? Number one gender issue? For me, this
is really unbelievable. But the community and the culture
of its universities, especially as we have, we
are weighing behind some other countries discussion in europe.
These are priorities and that seems to be there,
you know? Here? Yeah. I mean some
of, you know my situation, I have my
my stepdaughter, not stepdaughter, my son's wife,
daughter in law doesn't speak english. Just moved here
from Mexico. There's one event she can participate the
International Women's Day at the Y. M. C
. A. Because they have child care. They
have a graduate student happens to be a graduate undergrad
student, happened to have been of my student my
class last year and she reminded me about this existing
and they have, they have a student who's very
happy playing with kids that have been screaming, it's
hard for the women to interact and what are their
project is, but she can go and it's like
, how can you have events if you don't have
child care and what you just brought up about Virginia
Tech having this issue too, I always make clear
when I go to projects that we are not,
we don't have the model of solution. I got
involved in a project with Institute of Forestry in Nepal
because Virginia Tech wanted a female in the group because
, and I have been part of writing the proposal
, been part of the project, but it was
a woman in forestry that was supposed to go and
she had an emergency where she wasn't able to go
. Two days before Nepal I was asked, I'm
sure you're really busy. You probably can't do this
given up all. Uh but we really need a
female on the team. I can be there.
But it was because you know in fact we don't
have women in the sciences that we that are part
of our teams. I mean we do have some
and some have some fields of more than others but
we still have a lack of representation of the size
of representation. I know that there's more and more
females in Pasay and your classes, I'm sure.
But yeah, but conditions need to also allow for
things like childcare and work life balance for women to
proceed in their professions. And I didn't want to
take the No, no, that's why there's one
more thing I was thinking of in terms of a
barrier. Um in a more advanced country like Armenia
, which is a transition economy, the women have
trouble getting bank accounts. I mean I can walk
in and open a bank account because I'm a foreigner
and I'm on a project and they're pretty sure I'm
gonna, you know, for a woman to get
a bank account in Armenia is nigh on impossible.
So I think it depends on what level of development
you're working with. You know, I think it's
that they don't trust that they'll be able to balance
and or manage the money that that's the man's job
. Even the professors in our universities, I mean
they have a chance but they're not not always their
own and the savings account is taken up in a
checking account. I mean there's just all kinds of
structural barriers, they just don't trust that women can
do the finances. Mhm. Mhm. It's like
you. Oh, I see. Oh yeah,
yeah. Hi, so United said about what we
with. Right. I it's look at Yeah.
Uh huh. Nature. Yeah. They called excited
. So I was told melissa this project. Yeah
. Point out to me that I might woman.
Uh huh. Next we think about this because my
day is that women are ready moments, Right?
Yeah. So I was trying to do that but
in the meantime feeling obviously more work. But what
happened was when I went back and I said,
are you getting together and decided they said always on
Tuesday night they get together. What I found out
is that actually they're making it a way to get
out of the house. You know, societies for
the socially organized. They actually are. This was
a really they chat. Yeah, there's a whole
bunch of laughter, the kitchen space for you.
And then often that sometimes I find myself that why
are migrating. But in this case is still They're
using it really to get out of the house.
They are 17 years. We're getting together. Mhm
. And they're getting together and making side. So
I thought that was actually I get bad what you
said. I don't know. But now you don't
have to feel so bad. I mean it really
comes down to asking people what they want. So
it's just such a basic thing. And they want
different things in different places and women want different things
than men. And young women need different things than
older ones. It means demand. I flied out
also that there's a lot of gender because I just
go and then savings. Like I said to the
men, why can't you come? Why? Yeah
. And they said that it's not part of the
culture. So I said okay I'm gonna take you
home the whole and stop decided in the power that's
actually acceptable I suppose probably what's man's work and what's
women's work that's really it's so culturally bound. Yeah
. It is not sort of. Yeah. To
sanctify the ways to make them work. Mhm.
If yeah and uh was in Uganda and much of
west east africa women are often in this position the
park whereas in Asia, you know squat low and
can do everything and then set up. But men
kept telling me only women bend. That's why women
do the weeding. Only women bend. So and
so but then I was interviewing a young man who
was unmarried and had his own plot. This was
my peanut chris project. And I said well so
how do you who helps with your field? How
do you take the snow? I tear it.
Well can you show me how you eat? And
so he squatted and we did. And I have
this great fish of them laughing kind of embarrassed because
of course he can read. Men can then they
bend at the knees if they can't bend at the
hips. So just these ideas that justified discrimination.
Well, thank you very much for your participation for
coming. And thank you Angela for your 42 years 1071 --> A:middle L:90% .