Weaving Change

The Birth of a Small Handcrafted Industry...
Sister María Luisa Gamboa arrived in Tampamolón, in the southeastern region of the State of Huasteca (Mexico), in 2003, as a pastoral response to indigenous communities. Hospital Muguerza invited and supported our sisters in this ministry. With the aim of promoting human dignity, María Luisa began by visiting communities in eight municipalities, close to each other, to meet the people and assess their needs. During her visits, she was struck by the poverty and vulnerability of women. Women used to embroider napkins, but despite their beauty, they sold poorly. So Sister María Luisa suggested they consider making clothing in addition to napkins. Since the women wanted an additional income in the household, they found the idea appealing. To launch this project, Sister María Luisa asked for help from her mother, who was skilled in sewing. Maria Louisa mother gladly made patterns of different sizes using newspaper. Then María Luisa bought fabric and thread, and with these, the women began to learn to cut fabric for blouses. Everything had to be done by hand as they didn't have sewing machines.

When Sister María Cardoza arrived a year later, in 2004, to work with Sister María Luisa, she was inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of the women. She recalled her years of study when she was younger. In her youth, Sister Mary (as most of us call her) had taken sewing classes but hadn't shown much interest. However, faced with the need she saw, she returned to her hometown and sought out her sewing teacher to learn how to make shirts and children's clothing.

How to Sell the Merchandise?
One thing is the production of clothing, another is the sale. To sell the products, women send representatives from their communities periodically to take their products to selling places in the city. Everyone cooperates in advance with transportation, food, and lodging expenses. Each garment carries the name of the person who made the product and the price of the garment. Upon return, they distribute the profits from the sales.

Achievements
At one point, the women were invited to participate in a Successful Projects competition at the national level organized by FONART (National Fund for the Promotion of Crafts). After going through the different stages: regional, district, and state, they reached the final stage, the National one, in the city of León, Guanajuato. They didn't win first place, but they were considered to attend every year, for a month, with all expenses paid (lodging, transportation, food), and most importantly, to have a space to sell their products at the National Potosina Fair (FENAPO) - one of the most important fairs in the country. They continue to participate to this day. This speaks to the quality their products have achieved.

From Huasteca to Mezquital Valley
About fifteen years later, around 2016, having established this cottage industry in Tampamolón, María Luisa and Mary chose to move to Chilcuautla, Hidalgo, to the Mezquital Valley to work with women from the Hñahñu or Otomí communities. The Mezquital Valley was once considered the poorest area in the country. In fact, Mexico City's sewage is discharged there. However, thanks to state government, investment from Mexicans returning from the United States, and support from Germany, an irrigation system was installed using canals that irrigate farmlands. Mexican families who returned to the country invested in nurseries and greenhouses, and with drip irrigation, they began to grow lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, squash, cauliflower, and tomatoes. This has greatly improved the region's economy.

The small industry was gradually growing...
Sisters María Luisa and Mary, having visited the Hñahñu communities and realizing that women's need was to have their own income, encouraged them to diversify their products. The sisters shared their learning on making blouses, children's dresses, skirts, shirts, bags, purses, etc., with the women. Additionally, with the financial support of the Hilton Foundation and Christus Health, the sisters managed to buy sewing machines, chairs, and tables that are of great use to the entire community.

Looking to the Future
To this day, the project remains strong in both locations, Tampamolón and Chilcuautla. Once a year, the sisters return to the Huasteca, and there they meet with the coordinators, and everyone is trained in new models. This way, the sisters continue to support and accompany the 6 groups of women in that community.

In addition to accompanying the artisan women, Sisters María Luisa and Mary also participate with the entire local faith community in four areas of social pastoral care: labor, penitentiary, social commitment, and ecological. In 2022, they obtained funds from the Hilton Foundation to support 36 families in the conservation of maguey, a very important plant for their daily work. To protect the maguey plants from animals, the foundation supported with 74 rolls of cyclonic mesh, each roll being 50 meters long. With this help, families can continue working with maguey fiber and preserve the use of the Waist Loom, an ancestral technique with which they make the ayate and other artisanal garments.

Contemplating the passion and commitment of our sisters in their accompaniment of women, I experience a deep sense of pride in what our Congregation is achieving through Mary and María Luisa. Their unwavering faith, generosity, and dedication embody the spirit of the Gospel. Our beloved María Luisa and Mary are not only alleviating social challenges in two indigenous communities but are also cultivating transformative change that enriches society as a whole. Their ministry is an inspiration; a testimony to the power of love, creativity, and solidarity.

Written by Sister Miriam Banon CCVI

A Reflection on International Women's Day from the UN

International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

It is also an opportunity to consider how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal number 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls; and number 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.

Some key targets of the 2030 Agenda:

• By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes.
• By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education.
• End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
• Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.
• Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

2018 Message by UN Secretary-General António Guterres


This year, International Women’s Day comes on the heels of unprecedented global movement for women’s rights, equality and justice. Sexual harassment, violence and discrimination against women has captured headlines and public discourse, propelled by a rising determination for change.

International Women’s Day 2018 is an opportunity to transform this momentum into action, to empower women in all settings, rural and urban, and celebrate the activists who are working relentlessly to claim women’s rights and realize their full potential.

Echoing the priority theme of the upcoming 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, International Women’s Day will also draw attention to the rights and activism of rural women, who make up over a quarter of the world population and majority of the 43 per cent of women in the global agricultural labour force.

They till the lands and plant seeds to feed nations, ensure food security for their communities and build climate resilience. Yet, on almost every measure of development, because of deep seated gender inequalities and discrimination, rural women fare worse than rural men or urban women. For instance, less than 20 per cent of landholders worldwide are women, and while the global pay gap between men and women stand at 23 per cent, in rural areas, it can be as high as 40 per cent. They lack infrastructure and services, decent work and social protection, and are left more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Rural women and their organizations represent an enormous potential, and they are on the move to claim their rights and improve their livelihoods and wellbeing. They are using innovative agricultural methods, setting up successful businesses and acquiring new skills, pursuing their legal entitlements and running for office.

On 8 March, join activists around the world and UN Women to seize the moment, celebrate, take action and transform women’s lives everywhere. The time is NOW.

Content shared from http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/ 

#PressForProgress on International Women's Day (March 8)

International Women's Day 2018 campaign theme: #PressforProgress

With the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Gender Gap Report findings telling us that gender parity is over 200 years away - there has never been a more important time to keep motivated and #PressforProgress. And with global activism for women's equality fueled by movements like #MeToo, #TimesUp and more - there is a strong global momentum striving for gender parity.

And while we know that gender parity won't happen overnight, the good news is that across the world women are making positive gains day by day. Plus, there's indeed a very strong and growing global movement of advocacy, activism and support.

So we can't be complacent. Now, more than ever, there's a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity. A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.

International Women's Day is not country, group or organisation specific. The day belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. So together, let's all be tenacious in accelerating gender parity. Collectively, let's all Press for Progress.

#PressforProgress NOW

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IWD campaign theme continues all year

March 8 sees the annual IWD campaign theme kick off for the year ahead, although many groups around the world adopt and promote the campaign theme from early in the year. The IWD campaign theme provides a unified direction to guide and galvanize collective action. The campaign theme does not end on International Women's Day. It's just the start. Throughout the year many groups worldwide adopt the IWD campaign theme for further campaign work, gender-focused initiatives, continuing activity and events. A great example of this was in 2017 when the USA Women's Hockey Team went on to adopt the #BeBoldForChange IWD campaign theme to later rally for equal pay, boycotting the national finals unless a suitable deal was struck. Many fans and further teams supported the campaign.

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Collectively we can all play a part

Collective action and shared responsibility for driving gender parity is what makes International Women's Day successful. Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist once explained "The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights."

Started by the Suffragettes in the early 1900's, the first International Women's Day was celebrated in 1911. International Women's Day belongs to all communities everywhere - governments, companies, charities, educational institutions, networks, associations, the media and more. Whether through a global conference, community gathering, classroom lesson or dinner table conversation - everyone can play a purposeful part in pressing for gender parity.

So make International Women's Day YOUR day and do what you can to truly make a positive difference for women. Press for Progress!

COMMITTED TO LIFE

The focus of gender in light of current challenges

By Dr. Sandra Lassak*

Talking about feminism and theology may seem like a contradiction, which isn’t surprising given the inequality between men and women: the structural oppression of women, femicide, divorced couples, and discrimination against homosexuals among others.

Despite the fact that for decades women have been doing theology in our churches and theological spaces, most of these spaces remain highly patriarchal, if not downright misogynistic. The identities of women are fixed, formed around constructions of gender and sexuality justified by a religious and theological discourse which promotes the ideal woman as: virgin, submissive and servile. From this dichotomy of macho men and servile women a whole system of inequality and oppression based on gender has been constructed and continues to be maintained in some ways to this day.

Theology seems to be a field of men, despite the fact that women have been doing theology for decades, and it is because within the pyramidal structure of the Church we are outside the positions of power and decision making. Changing or questioning the structures and ideologies of this system is not in the interests of some male pastors, priests and theologians because it would weaken the power they want to maintain. That is why we find so much resistance and rejection to gender theories, because it is an approach that shows the unjust inequalities and offers help to overcome them in order to build communities of equals.

Since it emerged in the 1980s, feminist theology has been a theology articulated from the marginalized experiences of women and at the same time a critique of the patriarchal character of Theology. Based on realities and concrete experiences of women, feminist theology was part of the feminist movement, sharing the struggles for a social and political transformation, for equality, and dignified conditions for all. Therefore, feminist theology is not a theology only of women and for women, but is a theology that problematizes 'gender' and therefore should be important to all.

Clarification of feminism and why it is important to continue talking about feminism

Declaring oneself a feminist puts you in a position of suspicion accompanied by images and prejudices such as being a macho dressed as a woman, a lesbian, a woman who hates men, etc. However, national and international news indicate that misogyny, oppression and violence against women continue to be one of the biggest problems today at the global level.

In times of capitalist expansion, new excluded groups are spreading with greater speed and brutality, and among them are women. Social, political and economic interests have created structures of inequality throughout the centuries. And although thanks to the struggles of so many women - which have occurred throughout history – there have been some changes achieved, there is still a long way to go to have societies and communities of equals.

Women still belong to the most disadvantaged group.  They are the most affected by violence, poverty and discrimination as well as by the ecological crisis. They suffer from the effects of climate catastrophes, land grabbing and the destruction of life's foundations. Faced with this situation it is imperative to ask for new forms of solidarity including regional, national and international.

How can we, in these struggles for better living conditions, dignity and equal rights, connect and share among all women, who from different local contexts are organizing to promote processes of change (for example, the 'Ni una menos' or Women's March)? How can we and should we be part of this work as Christians?

In Latin America, religion has sold itself out by having an important role in the construction of gender legitimizing a patriarchal, capitalist and heteronormative social and economic system. Therefore, doing a social analysis we cannot leave out a religious analysis and a critical theological view.

It is also important to see the variety and diversity of experiences of oppression, recognizing the same structures of inequality and power behind them. Because at the core of talking about and analyzing gender relations is talking about power relations.

The conception of gender does not depend on an a-cultural biological determinism, but rather on each culture and worldview, “in that sense, every society, every community, every group and every person has a particular gender conception, based on their own culture.[1]” We learn from childhood to identify with the worldview and conception of gender roles in our culture. Because in the nation we live, as Simone de Beauvoir one of the first great women's rights defenders said, “One isn’t born a woman, one becomes a woman.”

Current challenges

According to theologian Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, theology always has to do with dreams and visions of a more just and united world; an issue that deeply touches humanity.[2] For this reason, it is necessary to articulate a de-patriarchicalization and decolonization from and with the women who, in their daily struggles, face colonial, capitalist and patriarchal oppression.

They are peasant women, indigenous, from popular urban sectors and also women who question - from their individual and collective experience - colonial and patriarchal relations; who fight together to overcome all kinds of oppression. In this way “... feminism is not just another theory, it is a theory, a conception, a worldview, a philosophy, a politics born from the most rebellious women against patriarchy,”[3]  says Bolivian Aymara, Julieta Paredes. Practically, feminism is a way of life, “a new way of understanding life and human relations,”[4] as theologian Ivone Gebara puts it.

The reality of our world, challenges us to permanently relocate in different senses, to leave the offices, the classrooms, the parishes, and place ourselves in the 'street'. Displacement impacts us, we will have to move from traditional spaces of religion and oppression and search for new spaces where more integral and equal spiritualties can be lived.

From the pluralities we have to construct new forms of heterogeneous and inclusive communities of coexistence with all people, with nature, and between countries and continents, and break down the mental as well as social, economic and political barriers and hierarchies.

What nourishes us is a spirituality of resistance and rebellion fueled by the sharing of realities and daily struggles, of solidarity and sisterhood. This spirituality is made real through action, a collective and diverse expression that seeks to build new relationships and another world of which we all dream.

This is the only way we will we be able to offer relevant contributions to the questions and problems that people live today. Because the discipleship and following of Jesus requires us to be part of the processes towards equality and justice.

Questions for reflection:

·      What would it mean to decolonize and de-patriarchicalize?

·      What does it mean to do theology from our context, our social and pastoral commitments?

·      For what would I want to make a commitment? 

*Dr. Sandra Lassak holds a Doctorate in Theology

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[1] Lagarde, Marcela, “El género, fragment literal: ´La perspectiva de género´, en Género y feminismo. Desarrollo humano y democracia. Ed. horas y HORAS, España, 1996, pp. 13-38.

[2] Vease Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, Discipulado de Iguales, Una Ekklesia-lógica Feminista de Liberación. (Mujeres haciendo Teología desde Bolivia – Volumen III), p.214-235.

[3]  Paredes Julieta, en: Gargallo Francesca, Feminismos desde Abya Yala, Ideas y proporciones de las mujeres de 607 comunidades de nuestra América, Ciudad de México 2014, p. 96.

[4] Gebara, Ivone, Las aguas de mi pozo. Reflexiones sobre experiencias de libertad, Montevideo 2005, 133.

Take Action

People everywhere from all walks of life are working together to achieve gender equality. But it takes more – it takes you. Every day in countries around the world, women and girls experience acts of violence ranging from online harassment to domestic assault and human trafficking. This has to stop.

You don’t have to be a hero to join the fight against gender-based violence, but real change requires all of us to do what we can. Here are a few ways to be smart about being safe.

No Trolls. What happens online is everyone’s business. Report bullying and abusive comments immediately to a parent, teacher or site administrator.

Teach Peace. Give young people the tools to stop gender-based violence before it starts with Voices Against Violence, a non-formal education program by UN Women and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

Active Bystander. Check in to help out. Simply asking "Are you okay?" may offer a potential victim a way out of a dangerous situation.

It only takes a minute to have an impact.  How would your life be different if safety wasn't an issue?

Read all stories:

http://www.heforshe.org/en/take-action/education

Women's Right to Land

Women are the first line of defence against hunger and yet remain at the back of the line when it comes to land.  
So, the rural women farmers from all across Africa trek to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro to demand their rights to land.

African Women represent major labor force in agriculture and make a significant contribution to rural development and to the achievement of food security, producing most of the continent’s food.

But behind these figures lie a cruel injustice. Rural women from Sub-Saharan Africa own an average of 15% of the land they cultivate, being relegated to mere labour force and have less freedom to enjoy the income generated from their production.

October 15, which is marked as International Rural Women’s Day, women from all across Africa are convening for a historic moment at the base of Kilimanjaro to formalise their request and claim their right to land and production resources. And some will climb to the peak as a symbol of their determination to make their demands heard all over the world.

The Kilimanjaro Initiative (October 3-17, 2016) is a rural women’s mobilisation from across Africa towards an iconic moment at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. With access to and control over land and natural resources as an entry point, three regional caravans are expected to depart simultaneously from the South, East and West, culminating in a mass African rural women’s assembly and a symbolic ascent by a delegation of women.


In Southern Africa the caravan began in Zimbabwe with the road to 'Women to Kilimanjaro' starting in the four corners of Zimbabwe with women converging in Nyanga for a symbolic event that involved climbing Mount Inyangani and then the official event where Ministers of Women Affairs, Manicaland Provincial Affairs pledging their support with women with regards to their access, control and ownership of land and natural resources. 

In Zimbabwe the #women2kilimanjaro initiative culminated with a handover of the #Zimbabwe caravan to Zambia, which picked it up from there to Malawi which take it up to Arusha Tanzania where women from parts of Africa, South, East, and West will meet for the mass African rural women assembly.

The event presented their charter of demands on their rights to access, control and own land.



You can spread their voice. By signing this petition, you will be sending an email to the leaders of the main governmental organisations in West Africa who have the ability to formalise the demands for women’s land rights: 
https://act.oxfam.org/west-africa/my-land-my-life

Women and Climate

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimated that women comprise one of the most climate vulnerable populations. 

On Monday, on the eve of the Gender Day at the ongoing UN Climate Change Summit (COP21) in Paris, Baun who is better known as or ‘Mama Aleta’ in West Timor, had a strong message for the negotiators: for a climate deal to be effective on the ground, it also had to be gender equal and recognize women’s climate leadership.

The residents of Nwadjahane, a village in southern Mozambique, have already seen some of the changes that are expected to come with global warming. Since the 1980s, droughts and floods have hit the village harder and more frequently than before. But the villagers adapted, forming farming associations that placed collective responsibility on finding potential solutions to climate disasters, such as planting new, drought-resistant species of rice, corn, and cassava. Those associations are especially popular with women, according to a report by the International Institute for Environment and Development, a policy-research group. And as a result, women's status among farmers has risen.

That's just one example of how women in the developing world may be uniquely affected by climate change—and how they can come up with unique solutions. Over the past few years, several research groups have noted that, in developing regions, women and girls may suffer more from global warming than men and boys do. That struggle comes on top of the unique challenges of dealing with climate change in regions with little money, infrastructure, or government support (Ways)

Women are the victims of climate change – and the keys to climate action: here

Read more: here