Testimony of Stéphanie Thérien, volunteer in Niger

Stéphanie is a Gender equality counsellor

"Good morning, I'm calling from Oxfam-Québec. I'd like to set up a meeting with you to discuss an assignment to Niamey, in Niger". Niger? Before my partner took this call, I had never thought seriously about Africa. And I had certainly never imagined being in Africa! I had traveled far and wide, yet now for the first time I really had the sense that I was leaving for another planet. The pre-departure preps were a very important stage for me. Knowing nothing about the history or the culture of these people, I plunged right in. I was determined to read everything I could get my hands on, from the Koran to the national weekly.

(The people are Muslims, hence my interest in reading the Koran before starting work. The national weekly newspaper, the Républicain, is available online.)

As soon as our plane landed, with our hosts’ welcome still ringing in my ears, I was eager to be up and running. My love affair with Africa and Africans had begun. It was a fine beginning. Our children were ages 2 and 3 at the time, and soon our little family was safely installed amid the heat and dust of Niamey. I had done some consulting work, compiling studies on violence against women in West Africa (available in French only), and I made it clear I wanted to join the team of cooperants of which my partner was a member. I was fully aware of the challenges facing women's empowerment in Niger, and yet I had a conviction, one that I've never given up since – I was convinced of the importance of development assistance and that I could be part of the effort that the men and women of Niger were making to change certain social practices.

When I started out, one of my biggest concerns was to understand how the people I was going to be working with actually viewed the world. After lengthy research as a consultant, I found that very few in-depth studies have been conducted in Niger to discover how women and people in general think and what their real expectations are – there were just some copy-and-paste models based on Western development, and these were not very helpful. What does poverty mean for a woman in Niger? What does autonomy mean in her social, cultural and economic context? How can you build a real partnership without understanding how your partners see the world? Our partners in Niger were very generous, and they gave freely of themselves as I delved into these questions. I was thrilled with the support I received from all the local organizations involved in the struggle for human rights and against gender discrimination.

Of all the projects we supported, perhaps my favourite involved a federation of farmers’ organizations that has a total membership of more than 35,000 farmers. An Oxfam-Québec partner, the Federation had expressed an interest in mainstreaming the gender perspective throughout its structure: senior management, divisions, associations and membership. The idea was to give women a bigger say in decision-making at all levels, to take account of the particular concerns of its female members, and to provide them with services to make them economically independent.

Our team supported this Federation in several ways. First, -- being careful not to interpret the problems and hopes of these women from the viewpoint of a Westerner -- we organized a five-day forum with women representing all the groups to help identify the key difficulties facing them in their daily lives. During long days sitting on the ground, in 45° heat, many with a baby at their breast, and with the help of translators, the women explained to their group managers the problems they were facing every day, and they came up with concrete actions that would help integrate them into the Federation as producers and farmers. As in many other parts of the world, achieving empowerment for women in Niger is a complex process: most rural women have no access to education or safe drinking water. They are often subject to social taboos that keep them subservient -- for example, a woman could not go off by herself to buy an animal at market. And at the same time, they have large families that they must care for from an early age (the average age of first marriage in the countryside is 11 or 12 years). The women's forum produced some concrete results. The Federation managers changed their service approach to take account of women's daily reality and to make the services more accessible to them. Literacy training, for example, was revised to gear the contents more towards women's needs, to suit women’s domestic work schedule, and to hold sessions in places more likely to meet with a husband's approval. In this way, all the Federation's services have changed. Through subsequent partnership efforts with Oxfam-Québec (finding funds for a gender plan, providing gender training at all levels of management, establishing women's workshops etc.) services ranging from membership information to farm credit have been geared to the concerns and needs of female members. This project (which we cannot properly call an economic development project) has made a real contribution to making women's viewpoints known, enhancing their opportunities, and giving them greater economic independence for sustainable development of their skills.

Many projects integrating the gender equality approach are still underway in Niger. They are fostering more sustainable social and economic development, whether by supporting organizations in their efforts to raise awareness about women's rights, finding start-up funds for women entrepreneurs, or organizing legal and financial services. For my part, now that I'm back in Canada, I believe in development assistance more than ever. I sincerely think that projects of this kind, firmly rooted in women's concerns, well targeted, prepared in the field by and for women themselves, can bring about social change. I am now writing my doctoral thesis, which will suggest some ways to integrate social groups more thoroughly into international development efforts. My work in West Africa has been an inspiration to me. And I am convinced that our future work as international cooperants will contribute to the emancipation of women and will give them the tools to achieve the independence they seek.