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The
Caritas-DSM Women in Development Project (WID) was started in 1998 in response
to a Needs Assessment Survey that showed women often are the poorest and
most exploited group in Tanzanian society. The Project has been designed
to raise the consciousness of the community about women's development issues
while simultaneously seeking real changes in the social structures of the
society.The Project began by training women animators who then went out to the villages searching out women, in four low-income and rural areas of the Archdiocese, who were in need of credit but who did not qualify for the traditional money lending institutions. The women selected, received a sound preparation for entrance into the Savings and Credit Scheme (SCS). Along with the loans, ongoing education is given in good business practices, women's legal rights, and training in handling the administrative aspects of the Project in their Centers. Two Centers are fully operational and two more are awaiting sufficient funds to begin operation.
The program entered into a new phase in May 2001 with the following major projects: Gender Development Sensitization, Adult Literacy, and Single Mothers' Empowerment.
Gender Development Sensitization Program (GDS) seeks to engage communities in discussions about the unequal distribution of work, unequal socio-economic status of women and men in distribution of resources and decision-making. This is done through a series of seminars where the root causes of gender imbalance are analyzed. Men and women both participate in these seminars.
The GDS seminars further emphasize creating a gender balance in the community with regard to work, control over resources and decision-making; this actually quickens the pace of development. The seminars culminate in an exercise in which the community's implementation of these plans range from improved farming techniques, to organizing local cooperatives, to local government reforms, to inclusion in the SCS (micro credit project) of Caritas-DSM.
By linking the community's development with an emphasis on gender equality, the GDS Project often achieves a renewed spirit of cooperation in the target communities and facilitates the community's break from poverty.
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Literacy Program | |
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Single Mothers' Enpowerment | |
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by Interactive Palette
