Gender in Zambia

Last week began with a community review meeting on gender equality. Community review is the part of the DAPP Child Aid Project where area leaders collect reports from the voluntary community committees that train villagers. It’s also the time the community can discuss any ongoing challenges they’re having.

As a disclaimer, I’m just going to state now that my understanding of the community review is based on translation from Grace, the area leader I was with. Grace and I were in Kakwalesa, the village next to my own, Nsokoshi and we were headed to the oldest primary school in Mukonchi built in 1957—with no renovations since that time.

DAPP depends on coordination with local schools to organize the community so the first thing Grace and I did was greet the headmaster of the school. I learned that the school has a student teacher ratio of over 45 students per teacher. And it wasn’t surprised to learn there are more boys than girls enrolled. When I asked the headmaster what the reason for the discrepancy is—as I always do with all the headmasters I meet—he answered me the same way as other headmasters: early marriages, pregnancies and poor education of parents.

It is common to hear someone shout “gender, gender” in Zambia to elicit the participation of women in group settings since they are often quieter compared to the men. This overt attempt to include women alone shows that attitudes towards women are beginning to change. Still, the villagers at the community review, both men and women, agreed that women are oppressed.

One woman was clearly complaining that men don’t help women enough with housework since an elder man in the village replied that when men help women, the women get too excited, tell their friends whose husbands find out then shame the men. Attitudes may be changing, but very slowly. Even the Child Aid project which is supposed to promote gender equality has mostly male beneficiaries for larger pass-on loans with bee-keeping, piggery and fish farming.

When I shared with the community how we are striving towards gender equality and it’s very common for men to do chores and cook and for couples to decide formally on how to split housework, I thought about the contradictory rhetoric in development; community participation and community ownership are seen as desirable in development policy but so is gender equality.

Agricultural Committees select beneficiaries for pass on loans though they are selecting mostly men. Is it because more men are interested in benefiting from the loan program than women? I haven’t figured that out yet. Area leaders say the people who can best manage the loans are selected, but given the numbers I suspect committees are still privileging men.

Either way it seems the fieldworker is often in the position where they have to reconcile some contradictions since participation and community management are important in many successful development projects but so is gender equality. It definitely felt awkward even sharing how couples take turns cooking in Canada—it felt like I was trying to force change and not respecting tradition, but there comes a point when development workers have to make a choice about values to promote even when they contradict with other ones.

As the community review ended I approached one young lady who is a DAPP Out of School Youth Club leader. I asked her “Is there any man in your village that does any cooking?” “No, no madam. There is not. Maybe in Canada gender equality is easy, but in Zambia it is different.”

One of the key indicators of success for the Child Aid Project in Kapiri Mposhi is that 70% of women report men helping them more at home. DAPP might not be meeting that key indicator of success but as I sat beside Grace, women and men alike focused their attention on her as she spoke fluidly with authority to the community.

How do new ideas spread?

“Disease management of animals is a problem” Stanley, one of the area leaders said in response to my question about the weaknesses field workers perceive in the Child Aid Project. All 11 area leaders and both Project Council Leaders sat in a semi-circle crowded in a room in the DAPP office. I was facilitating an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses threats and opportunities of the Child Aid Project in Kapiri Mposhi with them.

This type of analysis is called SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, and Opportunities). It’s a very common business management tool. It can lead to strategies that can be integrated into planning to improve future outcomes of businesses, projects or programs. I wasn’t surprised that disease management was a problem.

Just a few days before, I participated in a review meeting for community veterinarians that DAPP trained with the help of Wilfred, the government veterinarian. Several of these community vets admitted that many people in their areas weren’t building proper shelters to protect their animals from diseases. They also complained that people weren’t respecting their authority as community vets so it was difficult to persuade them to do anything.

I’ve been reading a book called The Critical Villager by Eric Dudley about the mindset of villagers and how they receive and act on new ideas. One of his arguments is that villagers aren’t empty vessels eagerly waiting to learn and adopt new ideas. Villagers are more like skeptical scientists he says. Villagers won’t just change their behavior because someone tells them too. They might not understand the message that someone is saying, feel shamed by that someone or not respect that person’s authority.

One possible reason that some Village Action Group (VAG) members active in the project aren’t building shelters to protect their animals from disease is that they don’t understand the purpose of the shelter. Villagers haven’t understood the main idea that the shelter will prevent their animals from having diseases. Maybe to them, their animals are usually fine so they don’t see the need for it. Another I see is that the authority of the community veterinarians isn’t being recognized by some villagers because the role of a community veterinarian doesn’t make sense to them. They don’t trust the volunteer community vet’s accreditations.

Another problem may be the quality of instruction VAG members are receiving. Based on my observations from a review session on livestock management with Community Agricultural Committees (CACs) responsible for training VAG members, CACs are lacking knowledge on animal care. If even these CACs are self-admittedly lacking knowledge, I assume the VAG members they’re responsible for training aren’t receiving the best instruction.

On top of the lack of knowledge that exists, just today the Program Officer mentioned casually that VAG participation is dwindling. What’s the reason? VAG members were recruited by their fellow community members with promises of tractors, hammer-mills and cattle. None of these items are being distributed by the Child Aid Project and apparently no one from DAPP was disseminating that message. The potential for miscommunication between people is huge just like that game of broken-telephone that continues to amuse children in Zambia and Canada alike.

Reading Dudley’s book is making me re-think how people change their behaviors and I have many new questions. What knowledge did the community members receive in livestock management? What knowledge have they retained? How could project evaluation determine the reasons people aren’t taking care of their animals? How can DAPP encourage people to take preventive actions to protect their animals from disease so they won’t default on pass-on loans? Above all, I’m recognizing that the informational pamphlets I’m working on coordinating will be a very small contribution in the complex process of behavior change.

The Sustainable Good Life

“If you have an expensive mortgage and a family to support then theoretical objections to the environmentally damaging commute to work or of the triviality of your job can quietly evaporate. Desperate people from all levels of wealth are hungry for better alternatives.”
~Eric Dudley~

In defining poverty many people will say that it’s at least in part characterized by a lack of opportunity and choice for a better life. I’ve been thinking that if we define poverty as a lack of choice, than even better-off people face the same problem of constraints. How many people want a better job? How many people want more vacation time? How many people feel they lack material comforts compared to their neighbors? Are the constraints these better-off people are facing wholly internal (relating to the attitudes and capabilities of the individuals themselves) or are they the result from inequality of opportunity within rich societies?

The point is that many people in the rich world are facing similar challenges to much poorer people. In my mind, this distinction between “us” and “them” erodes as neither have currently achieved or even has a clear picture of the “sustainable good life” (a high quality of life people are happy with that doesn’t degrade the resources we ourselves and future generations depend on).
On my host family’s wall is a picture that says “the village life is too difficult to maintain.”

Given the choice my host family mother, Chikonde, would choose to live in the city. She lived there for a few years with her brother after she divorced. This attraction to the city cuts across generations, and is perhaps more prevalent in younger generations. In conversations with many of the DAPP fieldworkers they say that the youth want to live in the cities as well.

Mungaila, the accountant at DAPP told me the attraction to the city results from the youth’s view that city life as easier and modern: “The youth, they want good communication services, good food, electricity and running water.” If village life could be easier and people had more opportunity in the rural area, would they want to stay? For me that is a fundamental question. I know that globalization is a powerful force and judging form the prevailing attitude of the youth, many are clearly attracted to the city and its promise for a lifestyle of mass consumption.

Is mass consumption the highest form of human development though? If people are leaving poverty into something more comfortable then it is essential to consider the environmental consequences of this. In 2007, the UN reported the percentage of people living in cities has climbed over 50% for the first time in human history. I cannot help but feel unsettled by the problems that remain as people choose to leave the rural areas for the city. I’m not convinced that some sustainable middle-ground exists yet. Even if the truly sustainable lifestyle exists and the only problem is implementing it at various levels in society as well as at the global level, I’m even less convinced that implementation can be achieved.

Some people may say as an urbanized mass-consumer myself, it’s hypocritical for me to say environmental considerations should be included in all development projects, programs and policies while my own country didn’t become rich that way. In response to this, I feel it’s short-sighted to believe it’s possible to develop while degrading the resources that poor people depend on and changing the climate in ways detrimental to poor small-scale farmers. I do believe that people should have a choice of whether they want to stay in the rural area or live in the city, but if people flock to cities for jobs this will create more environmental problems that will need to be tackled urgently if countries proceed along the same developmental paths that China and India are currently on.

Wangari Maathia, a prominent female leader in Kenya who started the Green Belt Movement and was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 2004 said the good African society is like a traditional stool with a round top and three legs. The first leg represents a democratic space where people’s, women’s and children’s rights are respected. The second, sustainable management of resources and the third leg is a culture of peace and tolerance. The top represents a healthy society, and if any one leg is missing the society cannot be stable. To me, this analogy and the work of Wangari Maathia illustrate that community development and sustainable management of the environment are intertwined. I sometimes wonder if EWB fully appreciates this connnection.

Piggery and Fish Farming Improving Family Income in Twashuka

Nkonde Mwila and I left at noon to visit Twashuka, an area in rural Mukonchi. Nkonde is a fieldworker for DAPP in charge of community groups called Village Action Groups (VAGs) surrounding three schools. We were on our way to visit George Ndashe and Bornface Chisenga two beneficiaries of the Child Aid project’s income generating activities. George is preparing to receive one large-white sow and Bornface is preparing to farm fish.

15 households will benefit from piggery and fish ponds in Mukonchi by the end of this year. In the next year another 45 will benefit from piggery, and then 135 in the last year of the project. By the end of the project 45 will benefit from fish ponds.

After an hour of biking though grassland and small forests, we arrived at George’s farm, a small brick home with a tin roof alongside an open hut for cooking and a raised goat shelter.

“Muli Shaani?” (How are you) I greeted him.

“Bwino, bwino madame. Ula landa icibemba! (Very fine, Madame. You speak Bemba!) he replied.

“No, no. Panoono. Nde sambilila icibemba” (No, no. Only a little. I’m learning Bemba).

“Ishina lyande nine Vera. Niwe ani ishina” I asked (My name is Vera. What is your name?)

“George Ndashe”

After this typical greeting we all went to see the temporary pig pen he’s constructing to receive pigs. Even the temporary two-roomed brick pen looked sturdy and he had reinforced it with some wood pegs. I could see that he is very committed to the program.

George is a very active in his community since he’s the VAG coordinator for his village. He’s been identified by the Community Agricultural Committees as a viable farmer that can benefit by beginning piggery and had to apply for a loan to receive pigs which included preparing a budget, conducting a risk assessment as well as making strategies to minimize them.

“I expect a lot of profit from this. I have made a budget and I’m going to construct a better pen, much bigger than this one with concrete on the floor.” George responded when asked how he will benefit from beginning piggery.

George was also eager to show others in his community how to follow his example: “I will be passing on this loan to three beneficiaries who have not yet benefited from any income generating activities.” After asking George some more questions about his preparation to receive the sow from DAPP Nkonde and I moved onto Bornface’s farm.

Bornface appeared to be a viable and hardworking farmer. As we through his farm together, I could see many rows of eggplant and rape (a local green leafy vegetables) which he grows in addition to his staple crops. Bornface’s first fish pond is 5m by 15m complete with clay soil heaped around. Grass is growing out of it to hold the soil to hold the soil in place. He is only awaiting the fingerlings (baby fish) and has already started constructing another fish pond.

In spite of his hard work preparing the pond, Nkonde and I noticed he was missing a barrier and drainage system to prevent the fish from falling over the edge of the pond during the rainy season. Nkonde and I left having realized that Bornface is also a highly capable beneficiary who could use some additional knowledge.

So far I have identified that farmers in the VAGs can benefit from some written pamphlets to ensure they have access to high quality information so that they can properly care for their livestock and manage their income generating activities. I’m noticing that EWB volunteers can humbly bring a new perspective to their projects so that they better serve their intended beneficiaries.

Progress and Persistent Problems: Rural Health in Mukonchi

Mathew is a doctor at the Mukonchi Health Clinic. I was fortunate to receive a tour of the clinic from him last Saturday. With one clinic to serve a population of 28 000, I could tell that he is a busy man.

The clinic is one of the best maintained buildings in all of Mukonchi—second only to Catholic Church and its parish. The infrastructure for other buildings especially the rural schools is in a dilapidated state. School benches are missing and the chalkboards can be impossible to read from a distance.

Since Zambia is one of the African countries most affected by HIV/AIDS I asked him how the clinic was managing the epidemic.

“For all those tested, less than 5% of people are now testing positively for HIV. That is less than the percentage testing positively in the past” he happily reported. The government announced last month the overall rate of infection in Zambia has declined from 17% to 14.5%.

The most common illness the clinic treats is malaria. Last year, there were hundreds of new cases every month with over 600 cases one month. If I understood him correctly, there weren’t any deaths from malaria and that was a surprise to me. I plan to go back to ask him if the clinic used to experience any malaria related deaths and what happened to produce the change.

Despite this positive impression I was getting, the clinic still faces challenges. “Sometimes there are some problems when we want to buy equipment or other things” Mathew admitted. “We don’t have a lot, but we are doing the best we can.”

Another challenge concerns education especially with community awareness to encourage behaviour changes. Meghan, a Canadian volunteer for Student Partnership Worldwide is working with her Zambian partner Rachel doing HIV/AIDS and sex education at the Mukonchi High School. “Some people just don’t want to wear condoms…It doesn’t help when people think that Jesus doesn’t want them to wear a condom either!” Meghan said laughing, though I sensed the frustration in her tone.

On the front of maternal health during and after birth, some women still don’t plan a supervised birth. In a conversation with a nurse at the clinic, she regretted to inform me that one woman died last week from a returned placenta during birth. She didn’t plan a trip to the clinic, gave birth at home and bled too much before she could be rushed to Kabwe hospital.

The situation is improving however as more and more women are coming weeks before they are expected to deliver. The clinic even has a guest house for them complete with an outdoor kitchen so they can cook their meals. On the other side of the clinic is an outdoor pavilion where mothers can bring their babies to be vaccinated every week. Last week there was a large crowd of over 50 mothers with their young babies waiting for them to be vaccinated.

I left sensing that the hard-working doctors and nurses at the clinic were making progress in Mukonchi improving people’s health. At the same time, when some people are more than 30km away from the clinic and have no means of transport, preventable deaths occur. Health emergencies that could be handled in an urban setting such as complications at birth remain a problem in rural areas.

Can DAPP be in Kapiri Forever?

Last week, over one hundred community members gathered together late in the morning forming a semi-circle sitting on the grass on a sunny day outside the Makafu Basic School. They were awaiting a donor visit from Fredrick a young representative from Humana Holland and Renee, the Country Director for DAPP, a tall, good-humored former teacher in Denmark. This was the community’s chance to show off the activities they’ve been spear-heading since DAPP began working.

I arrived by truck with Gontley, the Child Aid Project Leader for Central Province, Matimba and various government officials. We took our seats on school benches in front of the community. Following introductions, the Coordinator for a Community Agricultural Committee (CAC) stood up to announce its activities highlighting the committee’s role implementing pass-on loans of chickens and goats, as well as distributing nutritional packages to be planted (consisting of cowpeas, maize seed, soy beans and groundnuts) for vulnerable farmers.

The Community Vet rose to address the crowd to discuss his training from DAPP and his responsibility for vaccinating livestock in 20 villages. Next, the Pre-school teacher from the Child Development Committee talked about the pre-school children receiving early education. She was followed by an Out of School Youth Club leader who reported on the activities that are keeping youth active, motivated and away from drug abuse. Finally, we were entertained with a dramatic sketch on DAPP’s role in promoting access to clean water and sanitation.

With all these changes the community was deriving I started to understand what community empowerment looks like. Complimenting the people’s efforts Renee stood up to address the people: “You have already made history in your communities!” With a wide smile on his face he added, “now the future is in your hands.”

Certainly the community must actively participate in the changes that improve their well-being, but to what extent? Earlier that day in a brief meeting with Mr. Mazumba, a representative for the District Commissioner for Kapiri Mposhi he was thoroughly appreciative of the changes he’s seeing in the district. I anticipated his appreciation in the presence of a donor, but what caught my attention is that he asked for DAPP to extend its work in Kapiri. He explained that “the government doesn’t have the capacity to provide these services to the people.” Mr. Mazamba’s comment instantly brought my mind back to a stakeholders’ meeting the previous week with the district counselor for Mukonchi. The counselor rose from her seat and she said with determination that “DAPP will be here forever! I promise that!”

Leaving his office, I couldn’t help but wonder if the changes DAPP was facilitating right now with the active participation of the community will be sustainable. From all the speeches from community members working together in various committees to educate each other I can see that structures are being set-up at the grass roots level with the potential to transform people’s lives, but will they continue to operate without DAPP’s presence with fieldworkers to help organize and motivate people? Or without DAPP providing any more material inputs into the project?

At the moment there are many participating villages in the Child Aid project, but not all the villages in Mukonchi and Mpunde districts are included. Extending the benefits to them eventually seems imperative, but what can the government do if it lacks the financial resources and administrative capacity? Since non-governmental organizations don’t intend to stay permanently, the government and the community must work together hand-in-hand for a brighter future. Identifying and building the community’s and the government’s capabilities and assets (including financial, particularly with the government), and then determining what their respective roles will be seems like the big challenge ahead.

Life in Nsokoshi Village

I arrived in Nsokoshi village in the Mukonchi area last week at night to live with Grace Kasali, a fieldworker for the Child Aid project. I wasn’t sure of the layout of my new home for the next three months since my head was turned towards the sky. I could not take my eyes away from the seemingly endless number of stars above me (probably making the sight of a “muzungo” in the village—the local word for white person—even more strange).

I proceeded to a small, three room house with a tin roof where my host family brothers, Brino and Trivo sleep. We ate nshima (white corn flour cooked with water until it’s a sticky paste) with beans as the relish for supper—which is so far my favorite relish to eat with nshima—as the family chatted in Bemba.

I answered a barrage of questions about Canada, how it compares to Zambia and how long it takes to get to Canada by ship—and I had no idea about the answer to the last one! At the end of dinner, I pointed towards a water-colour painting on the wall with a picture of an African village reading “The village life is to hard to maintain” and asked my host family mom, Miss. Lubemba if she believes what it says. Miss. Lubemba laughed at the painting then said to me "Ah, but it's true!"

Shortly after supper, we started getting ready for bed. In the village, with no electricity people adjust their schedules based on the sun so it’s perfectly normal to go to sleep directly after eating. Grace led me to her hut, about 15 meters from the main house with a thatched roof and I wondered if she still slept there in the rainy season.

In the morning, I could finally see where I was and admire the traditional architecture of the Bantu tribes and their artwork in the style of clay paint on the outside of Grace's hut.

As Grace and I went to fetch water, we passed her older sister home and I discovered that Grace lives within an area of about 100 hectres with extended family all around totaling around 120 people. This kind of living arrangement is common. Children shyly watched me from a distance. For many children it was the first time seeing a white person.

The community is fortunate to have a clean water source with a tube well located about 100 meters from the house. After fetching water the family and I listened to the news on the radio and ate breakfast on a straw mat outside the house.

Chewing on a delicious yellow sweet potato I wondered, is what I’m seeing poverty? How vulnerable is Grace's family? Are they unhappy? I stared up at the sky and contemplated the difficulty defining who is poor and what is development.