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Inclusion – Women, Youth, People with Disabilities and Vulnerable Groups
Women have always contributed strongly to Finnish society and lately, they have taken a predominant role also in politics. FFD has also given a strong role to women in their projects and promotes strongly gender equality and inclusiveness, and encourages and facilitates women’s participation. Since normally they have the main responsibility to take care of their families, it is better to organize events and trainings close to homes. Widows and single mothers can be discriminated against in several cultures, and it is important to allow them to become members of cooperatives or associations.
Gender equality and inclusiveness should not mean focusing only on women and girls. In FFDs work we raise awareness and embrace inclusion, equality, diversity and social justice of women, youth, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. Including men in this work is crucial, who can encourage community members by their example. A family is like a business that is run together. Utilizing everyone’s input and know-how contributes to a good result and the result should be shared equitably. Women’s education and increasing independence can seem threatening to some men but neither party should feel subordinated or that their status is threatened.
In the Kenya project, the trainings are common for men and women - this is supported by the fact that when trained together men notice women have rights, and women learn about their rights. The trainings have been very important to the women, as they also learn how to take care of their own farm and gain new knowledge. A group of widows and single mothers explained that since the husband does not take up their time, they have more time to take care of common issues in the cooperative and thus they can excel in their duties.
- Sirpa Kärkkäinen, The Finnish Forest Association, twinning partner of FFSPAK, Kenya
The FFD twinning evaluation in 2017 explains the role of twins on gender work: “Because the issue of women’s participation has been put at the centre of every awareness creation events, significant attitudinal change has been achieved. The Finnish experts that came through the twinning arrangement were themselves working in the forest management associations, thus have practical knowledge and experience. Their contribution has been oriented to practical aspects of forest management and that has helped a lot.”
As the FFD action is based on human rights, we study and understand vulnerabilities of different groups, sometimes based on their social roles or physical disabilities. Together with our partners we identify which instances are responsible for protecting their rights, thus being duty-bearers. We recognize that women and girls often have different social requirements and tasks which we need to take into account to engage them in activities. We challenge the norms in different way and use our women twins as role models to show how women can be recognized as an expert and have an important role in organizations.
“The project pioneered to combine the modality of technical training for young people to structuring an associate modality. In addition, it had a gender equality structure for young girls and boys’, members of the cooperative. Amazingly, parents didn’t oppose to this structure, since in the rural area this is sensitive topic”, expressed Oswaldo López Nuñez, evaluator of the project. COMJERUMA, Nicaragua
Mozambique is a country with bountiful natural resources, but the traces of the long civil war are still tangible. It was difficult to get Renamo’s representatives into the project activities. One of the critical questions for the development of the country is, how to include people from different political backgrounds into the same tables. Leader collaboration as well as FFD projects can be part of the process to heal wounds. EU is supporting Leader-pilots in post-conflict areas to mediate the tension between different groups in the society, like in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and in Georgia.
- Petri Rinne, Joutsenen Reitti, twinning partner of AKA, Mozambique
“A core result of the project is the empowerment of women entrepreneurship, with whom we are implementing a model of coffee business. They don’t only sell the coffee cherry, now they also sell the grounded coffee. With the mini-grants given by the project, women got a fund to buy basic equipment to start their business. In addition, we are helping them to sell their own coffee brand under CARUCHIL label. Twenty women are members of this initiative”, says Darwin Johan Lazo, Project Coordinator, CARUCHIL, Honduras.
