Women’s Empowerment Project moves forward

The Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP) is WCCN’s longest-running program. For over seventeen years, we have partnered with and supported several Nicaraguan women’s organizations. This support is demonstrated in different ways and at different levels. We have channeled funds for specific projects or for institutional support, co-organized workshops on specific issues, and organized speaking tours of Nicaraguan women’s leaders in the United States.

Over the years, WCCN has witnessed how these women’s organizations have moved forward in their daily struggles, supporting women who are overcoming inequalities, exclusion and violence, or in their efforts to achieve structural changes in gender relationships in Nicaraguan society. The Women’s Empowerment Project currently focuses on promoting women’s access to economic resources. As a result, the key components of the current Women’s Empowerment Project strategy are:

1. Facilitating women’s access to credit: Since WCCN started working in microfinance, one of its main goals has been to facilitate women’s access to credit. As a result, WCCN proactively manages its NICA Fund portfolio with the goal of supporting those microfinance organizations that lend primarily to women. In two studies on the social impact of microfinance in Nicaragua conducted by WCCN during the last five years, special attention was given to measuring the impact that credit has on women’s lives. Through the work of its partner agencies, the NICA Fund is now facilitating credit to approximately 6,500 Nicaraguan women.

WCCN has also started a pilot project to increase successful credit programs coordinated by, and focused on, women. As a result, WCCN has started lending to the small but very well-run Cooperativa Mano a Mano (Hand to Hand Cooperative) in the remote town of Waslala, in the department of Matagalpa. As part of that project, WCCN invited Imelda Peralta, general manager of Mano a Mano, to Madison as one of our keynote speakers during our latest annual meeting.

2. Promoting women’s access to land: WCCN believes that promoting wo­men’s access to and ownership of land is one of the most effective ways to start eliminating the structural inequalities that rural women face in Nicaragua. We recently started a pilot program with the Comité de Mujeres Rurales (CMR) in León. Thanks to our supporters, WCCN was able to fund the purchase of two small farms to be worked by women in CMR’s empowerment programs. During our recent trip to Nicaragua, we visited one of the farms, located in the community of Los Mangles, in the municipality of Telica, and talked to the four women who have started working the land. They expressed their appreciation and hope for a better future for themselves and their families.

This summer, WCCN is also working on a study on the relationship between violence against women and women’s ownership of property. The study is being conducted among 350 women in several rural communities in the municipality of Malpaisillo. This is a collaborative effort between Shelly Grabe, a researcher at the Women’s Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Xochitl-Acatl Women’s Center, the Network of Women Against Violence, and WCCN. The aim is to reproduce a study done in India on the same topic. We hope this study will be as useful to the Nicaraguan women’s movement as another study done a decade ago on the topic of domestic violence. That study was conducted by the University of León, a Swedish university and the Network of Women against Violence. The results helped the Nicaraguan women’s movement gather the necessary data to support their case for the adoption of legislation by the Nicaraguan National Assembly against domestic violence. With our current research, we hope to raise the profile of the issue of women’s ownership of property and state policies toward women in order to contribute to a decrease in domestic violence against women.

3. Supporting women’s access to income-generating activities: WCCN is convinced that women’s empowerment is possible only through a combination of gender education and income-generating activities that help women to move up the economic ladder. WCCN has helped the women’s organization La Fundación Entre Mujeres (La FEM) in Estelí get access to fair-trade markets for their coffee.

As reported in previous issues of Nicaraguan Developments, WCCN connected La FEM with Just Coffee, a coffee roaster in Madison, WI, which ended up purchasing the entire annual coffee crop of the cooperatives in La FEM. WCCN hopes to replicate this experience with other Nicaraguan women’s groups.