| المستخلص: |
The concept of women’s empowerment was born in the 1980s through community- based women's organizations from countries in the South. It was influenced by the three dimensions of social development: self empowerment, empowerment with, and empowerment for. However in 1990, when the concept became part of mainstream policies, critiques and debates emerged within the social programs and projects of social institutions. This presentation will illustrate the tension between, on the one hand, ways to understand women’s empowerment: grassroots women's organizations, and development organisations and social institutions. This tension will be examined through two models of social action: a local formula called kibaty, created for women’s organizations in rural Tanzania; and microcredits, as the formula implemented for formal development organizations to empower women economically. In 2007 , the method used to empower women in rural areas by social work organizations in 1990s, changed direction. The aim of social projects to empower women economically started with distribution of microcredits responding to the formula that productive activities for women will reduce poverty and empower them. Nowadays, social development officers and social workers disseminate messages addressing women’s empowerment. Those are aimed at building capacities through the creation of formal women’s group organizations. The purpose now is not only to increase female productivity to diminish poverty, but to reinforce women’s capacities to organize themselves into formalized groups and increase their co-operation skills. However, many difficulties have surfaced in the targeted rural women’s communities, which have different gender interests in such credits and groups than those organizations that promote them. On the other hand, kibaty, a traditional local rotating savings and credit association for women, is culturally adapted to female roles and daily responsibilities in their communities. Moreover, kibaty enhances their collective capacity to influence and change not only the material but also their social world. The aim of this paper-poster is to discuss those two models of women’s empowerment from a sociocultural perspective and to highlight factors that contribute to their success or failure. This will be done firstly by addressing how social projects efforts from national and international social policies to empower women are usually cultural blind and cultural insensitive. And secondly, by examining how women organize themselves changing prevailing patterns of access to and control over economic resources
|
