What I’m Doing

I am working with RACOBAO (Rural Action Based Community Organization) as Experiential Learning to explore my question: “what is the relationship between women and nature?”

More specifically, I will be learning about and observing gender roles in agriculture and natural resource management, and how women relate to the natural environment in Lyantonde. Working with RACOBAO will also give me the opportunity to learn about how HIV/AIDS and food security affect these relationships and dynamics, and how NGOs play a role in all of this. My experience with these topics thus far has been academic, so traveling to Lyantonde will give me the opportunity to add faces, stories, friendships, and a more personal understanding of these topics. Although I am coming into this experience with my own objectives and ideas, I am looking forward to having them be challenged, turned upside-down, and transformed into new and more informed questions.

While working with RACOBAO, I will be conducting interviews with several individuals from different perspectives and backgrounds within the community. Through these interviews, my own observations, and photographs I will be writing a journalistic style piece to share the voices and stories of those who are living in the community. My intention with this article is to bring awareness to the interconnectedness of gender, natural resources, agriculture, HIV/AIDS, and environmental degradation, and to share the human experience of these topics. As a white woman coming from a privileged background, I understand that I cannot speak for these individuals. However, my access to resources as a student gives me the ability to share these stories and bring awareness to a larger community, which I aim to do with as much objectivity as possible.

This is not to say that I don’t have any biases or personal objectives. I do. I am personally invested in these topics, and the fact that this is my area of study and that I am traveling to Uganda to work with RACOBAO automatically gives me a bias. What I will try to do is give the most well rounded perspective that I can given my background and objectives.

Why Uganda?

I began to take an interest in Africa in an academic context while taking African Self Perceptions, an African literature course taught by Christian Acemah at Quest. The texts and discussions of that course began to open my eyes to some of the deeper complexities of the African identity. The books we read focused on colonialism in relation to ethnicity, land, education, identity, language, conflict, leadership, and gender. Reading African literature allowed us to develop a more personal connection to the continent, as we formed our own relationships with the characters and explored the human side to Africa’s experience of colonialism. This new interest lead me to begin exploring my question in an African context. As I began to learn more about gender dynamics in African societies, the interconnectedness between gender, natural resource management, HIV/AIDS, food security, and agriculture became increasingly apparent. Below is a brief background on some of these connections to give you an idea of the context in which I am pursing my question in Uganda.

Gender, Agriculture, & Natural Resource Management

Women account for 70% of the agricultural workforce and 80% of food processors in sub-Saharan Africa (1). Specific gender roles in the agricultural sector cause men to control the economic realm while women constitute the bulk of the labour force and domestic responsibilities. As well as food producers, gender roles designate them as providers for the household, causing them to interact more closely with natural resources than men as it is their duty to obtain food and firewood for cooking (1).

“Throughout Africa, women are the primary caretakers, holding significant responsibility for tilling the land and feeding their families. As a result, they are often the first to become aware of environmental damage as resources become scarce and incapable of sustaining their families.” -Wangari Maathai’s Nobel Lecture, delivered in Oslo, 10 December 2004.

Women’s daily interaction with these resources also causes them to have a wealth of traditional knowledge about natural resource and their management (2). This knowledge could enable projects implemented by NGOs to be more informed and successful (3). However, due to their position on society, men are largely the household negotiators and women are often not included in meetings and other forms of public discussion, leaving their knowledge and perspective out of project planning and implementation (4). Often times, these natural resources are a source of food and sustenance for households.

Gender, HIV/AIDS, & Food Security

In Uganda (as well as many other African countries), high rates of HIV/AIDS induces a cycle of food insecurity (inadequate access to food of sufficient quantity or quality or the inability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways) and malnutrition. On a societal level, HIV/AIDS diminishes the agricultural workforce, as it kills mostly productive adults (5). This decrease in production causes food prices to rise, as more food has to be imported, making food less affordable and accessible to those living in poverty (5). On the household level, the loss of productive adults leads to increased malnutrition in the family as the household becomes less food secure (6).

Lack of social protection and insecure livelihoods can increase participation in risky behaviors such as prostitution, which can then enhance the spread of the virus (6).  Additionally, malnutrition weakens an individual’s ability to battle HIV/AIDS. If nutrition interventions are used early in the course of the disease, it is possible to counteract or avoid HIV related depletion of nutrient stores, weight loss and wasting, and malnutrition (5). In this way, HIV/AIDS and food insecurity are a reinforce each other.

Women are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS due to gender dynamics in many African societies. In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute 60% of people living with HIV/AIDS. Due to gender norms of many cultures, men generally have more sexual partners and older men have sexual relations with younger women. Often times this causes young women to have higher rates of infection than young men. Cultural stigmas surrounding HIV/AIDS often prevents women from accessing prevention or health care services. For example, condoms are often associated with prostitution, so many women avoid condom use to avoid shame from their husbands or community. They also have less access to information regarding prevention and healthcare services. (7)

Additionally, the prevalence of sexual violence against women in Sub-saharan Africa (and globally) increases rates of HIV/AIDS among women (7). Fear of violence from their partner might cause women to be less likely to discuss condom use or other prevention and healthcare services (7).

When natural resources are scare, poverty often increases in natural resource dependent areas (8). Women have less access sustenance from the land and become more dependent on the male head of household for food as men are more active in the monetary economy. This can often result in in prostitution for basic needs, which then leads to the spread of HIV/AIDS (8). The decrease of dependence on local natural resources also undercuts the importance of women’s traditional knowledge of these resources in the community (8).

Integrated Approaches

Below are some approaches that integrate the connections between the natural environment/ resources, gender, food security, and HIV/AIDS.

The Greenbelt Movement

Founded by Wangari Maathai in 1977, The Greenbelt Movement (GBM) began with working with women in rural communities to address their basic needs for fertile soil, water, and a healthy ecosystem through planting trees on critical watersheds throughout Kenya.

Because women are the often the first to experience environmental degradation such as deforestation, replanting forests is a means to ensuring a stable supply of fuel wood and a healthy ecosystem on which they can depend. Meanwhile, it provides monetary sustenance for women to have some economic stability.

Planting trees on public lands helps to reduce environmental destruction through decreasing erosion through retention of topsoil, increasing the ability to harvest rainwater, and helps communities to build resilience to climate change.

GBM has also implemented demonstration gardens to encourage households to grow food locally with highly nutritional crops. They provide training for the implementation and matinence of kitchen gardens to increase household security and diversify nutritional sources. This is increasingly important during weather changes resulting from climate change.

Women planting trees as a part of the Green Belt Movement

Learn more about the Green Belt Movements other projects at: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org

Kitchen Garden Implementation

Kitchen gardens are usually close to home, which minimizes transport for the household, particularly for females that are responsible for supporting the household meals (9). They can produce staple foods, surplus crops for income, plants for nutrition, and medicinal plants (10). These nutrients are often prerequisites for a successful anti-reteroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS. Additionally, “community gardens” which are often based at clinics or schools and managed by community groups, are a way to generate food to support the growing number of vulnerable children, orphans, elderly persons living in populations devastated by HIV/AIDS (9). Because these gardens are usually in small spaces, they can also be beneficial from an environmental perspective.

Studies on traditional mixed gardens have emphasized their regenerative characteristics, as they can recreate natural forest conditions and minimize the need for crop management (11). They can increase vegetative cover, preserve local germplasm, protect watersheds, and increase biodiversity (10). These gardens also provide a space to grow native African varieties of greens, tubers, and legumes that have been displaced by introduced European commercial grain hybrids and vegetables, which can begin to reintroduce traditional knowledge of local species (9). Much of this traditional knowledge is held by women in the community as their roles designated them as food providers.

When designing and implementing a garden, it is important that aid organization build on traditional gardening systems. Building on indigenous gardening skills in regard to the use and cultivation of native and wild plants, water conservation, and intercropping and mixed cropping is likely to make the garden more sustainable and useful to the community (9).  Incorporating women into this process is critical, as they hold much of the traditional ecological knowledge due to their close relationship to natural resources (12).

Learn more about kitchen gardens at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0051t/x0051t02.htm

So there you have a brief basis for the academic approach that I have taken to my question so far. Now, I am looking forward to exploring the human realities and spirituality behind my studies and to have my ideas transformed and put into an entirely new perspective.

Much Love!

Molly

References

1. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/gst_2010/Wakhungu-EP.2-EGM-ST.pdf

2. Mukadasi, B., & Nabalegwa, M. (2007). Gender mainstreaming and community participation in plant resource conservation in Buzaya county, Kamuli district, Uganda. African Journal Of Ecology, 457-12. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00730.x

3. Fonjong, L. 2008, ‘Gender Roles and practices in natural resource management in the North West Province of Cameroon’, Local Environment, 13(5), 461-475.

4.  Meinzen-dick, R., Brown, L., Feldstein, H., Quisumbing, A. 1997, ‘Gender, property rights, and natural resources’, Human Development, 25:8 1303-1315.

5. Otieno, A, et al. (2009). Impact of HIV and AIDS on household food and nutrition security in Suba district, Kenya. African Journal Of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition & Development, 9.7. 1452-1467. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.

6.  Dayanandan, R. (2013). Impact of HIV/AIDS on livelihood and food security. Researchers World: Journal Of Arts, Science & Commerce, 4.3. 1-14. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.

7. World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/gender/hiv_aids/en/

8. Kristin L. Dunkle et al., “Transactional Sex Among Women in Soweto, South Africa: Prevalence, Risk Factors and Association With HIV Infection,” Social Science & Medicine 59, no. 8 (2004)

9. Murphey, L. (2008). AIDS and kitchen gardens: insights from a village in Western Kenya. Population and Environment, 29.3. 133-161.

10. Gari, J. (2004). Agrobiodiversity strategies to combat food insecurity and HIV/AIDS impact on rural Africa. Advancing grassroots responses for nutrition, health and sustainable livelihoods. FAO Population and Development Service, Rome. http://www.fao.org/hivaids.

11. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). (1982). The UNICEF home gardens handbook: for people promoting mixed gardening in the humid tropics, by P. Sommers. New York, NY, USA.

12. Mukadasi, B., & Nabalegwa, M. (2007). Gender mainstreaming and community participation in plant resource conservation in Buzaya county, Kamuli district, Uganda. African Journal Of Ecology, 457-12. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2028.2007.00730.x