Empowering women and developing infrastructure

Last week, we went to visit different communities to see the progress in the Alimentos por Trabajo program there. Alimentos por Trabajao (AXT) is a program of the World Food Program that helps women to learn how to create and maintain a garden in which they can harvest fruits and vegetables. Five years ago, AXT started in different communities in Nicaragua and the program is very successful. Participating women now successfully grow oranges, tomatoes, onions, yucca, sweet lemon, maize, beans, malanga, chayote, ayote and paprika. Women who used to be very poor now have very good food for self-use and for sale. This results in families having better food and a healthy diet (many different fruits and vegetables which Nicaraguan people rarely eat), which result in less illnesses. In addition, they sell much of their fruits which results in an income. A part of this income is put in a Fond, so they have a reserve if something happens (accident, illnesses etc). On top of that, marriages are often better, because the women work too now which result in fewer frustrations. Fewer frustrations mean less divorces and child/women abuses. In sum: the results are huge and this could really help Nicaragua develop them self.

The other thing that struck me this week was the lack of infrastructure in Nicaragua and the consequences of that. This week we went to many different communities which applied for a new school for TNT. Every year TNT constructs school in the whole of Nicaragua to improve the living conditions of the Nicaraguan people. Currently we are evaluating the application and visit the communities to see where the schools are the most needed. We therefore conduct interviews with teachers and the leader of the community to asses the situation. We went to several communities which got a lot of support from different organisations and the schools there were in relatively good conditions. There were also a couple of communities where there was no school, the school was half an hour walking from the road or the school was located in a house of someone. The things they had in common; no public road. People sometimes have to walk for more than an hour to reach a public road in which they can catch a bus to a nearby town. No one would go there and in this way these communities are ‘forgotten’. They have no electricity, no flowing water, no latrines nor strong houses. This is holding back the development in Nicaragua.

In sum, two things I learned these last two weeks: infrastructure is essential for the development of a region even as teaching people how to make a long-term sustainable living for them self. Women can play an important role in this as well.