MAKING PROGRESS/STORIES OF CHANGE
MAKING RIGHTS REAL Transforming women’s lives in north-eastern Brazil
When Maria Jose Pereira was growing up in the rural town of Escada, her father’s tools were off limits. “Everyone in my house worked in construction. My father and brothers were all stonemasons,” Maria says. “I wanted to work with them, but they said I couldn’t because I was a woman.” Thanks to a groundbreaking government initiative, Maria has now proven her family wrong. Not only is she a licensed stonemason, she is also a plumber and electrician.
Chapéu de Palha Mulher, which is derived from ‘straw hat’ in Portuguese, is a social inclusion programme that provides professional training for women living in poor rural communities in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco. Launched in 2007, the programme was created by the state’s Secretariat for Women’s Policies in order to provide alternatives for female sugarcane farmers during the offharvest months.
Cristina Buarque, former State Secretary for Women’s Policies, Pernambuco, watches women from the Chapeu de Palha Mulher programme fish for shrimp in the River Goiana Photo: UN Women/Lianne Milton
19