Women ending poverty: WORTH notes from the field

Growing Numeracy Skills Empower Derartu Women

Derartu Group in Dendi district of Oromia began its WORTH group almost a year ago.  The group started by saving just 50 cents per week, but over time, they have been able to graduate to saving one birr a week.  At the beginning of the program, no one knew how to read and write. Oromia regional state recently switched to Afaan Oromo as its official language.  This meant that any woman in the group who had ever attended school in her younger years, had learned to write in Amharic script not in Oromo script, the current language being used in the region. The literacy volunteer could read and write only Amharic, not the newly-transcribed Afaan Oromo with its Latin script.

At the beginning of the WORTH intervention, a literacy volunteer was recruited from outside the group to get the group started with literacy study.   After several months, Tadelich, a contributing WORTH member, learned how to read and write in Afaan Oromo language and she is now able to teach others.   “I have children and when they come back from school, previously I could not check what they had written.  Now I can easily understand and help them.  I can even read what a torn paper says.  Before I could not read Afaan Oromo script.  Now I have started to read books like this, and I have started to expand my knowledge.  It’s a huge change in my life.”

But literacy is not the only thing that has changed these women’s lives.  New-found numeracy skills have empowered Derartu group members to better manage their money.   Says Alemi Megersa, ‘I didn’t know numbers- what do they symbolize?  What are they used for?  But after training in WORTH, I have started to feel their benefits.  Now I’m in total control of my money.  Now I know how to add, now I know how to subtract.”

“Now I have even started using numbers to manage my small business in my home, when I am making local beverages. Previously I didn’t know how much I had invested or how much I had sold.   Now I can somewhat record and control how much I spent.  I can also do numerical calculations.  Even if it’s just an ordinary calculation,  I can make that calculation!  Even if it’s just a small difference, that’s a huge difference for me.”

"Because I don’t have land myself, the only option I have is to be involved in this small business.  Previously I had to go to loan providers even just to get a small amount of money.  It was difficult because you could not get money easily.  They would appoint you to come one day and when you went they would tell you to come back another day.   But now with the profit from my business, I am paying into my loan’s principal and saving the excess profit as well."

Other Derartu group members are making and selling local alcohol, juice made of barley flour, local breads, injera and sauce.  They also engage in petty trade, selling matches, candies, soap, kerosene, oil and salt.   Each one is using their newly gained numeracy skills to gain control over the money that flows in and out of their hands.

New-Found Literacy Helps Defend and Win a Court Case

Taitu Bekele is a member of the Gergis Group in Bekay, Ethiopia. Her WORTH group started in September 2006 and Taitu has already found that her new literacy skills benefiting her life in more ways than expected.

In Taitu’s area, any adult woman who had attended any kind of education had learned to read and write in Amharic script. When the regional state decided to officially adopt Afaan Oromo language, which was transcribed with Latin letters, this left virtually all adult women functionally illiterate in the language of the state.

Says Taitu, “After WORTH, I am now able to write my name in Afaan Oromo language. My children are able to read Afaan Oromo script. I am using my literacy knowledge during the kebele meeting and when the Farmers’ Association calls a meeting. We use literacy at the clinic and hospital when we are paying and taking receipts. We also use literacy for writing things in the court. If two farmers are quarreling over a border, they will go to the social court in our kebele. The court then sends a letter to identify the case. They must read the letter and sign it”.

“After organizing into WORTH groups, we have learned our rights and obligations. We are learning through the program materials. If we face a problem, we ask each other questions. Then the whole class discussion clarifies the issue.”

“After learning to read, I have come to know my rights and obligations through different means. I was in court for a land claim case, and I was able to defend myself. I sent my application to the kebele. After identifying the receipts, I took the receipts to the court. This was taken as evidence. I also witnessed different documents. And because of this, I won the case! By looking at this evidence, the court decided on my behalf, and now everything is ok!”

“Before WORTH, I was sending five children to school. Now I am sending an additional one. …. None of my children are out of school now”.

“I may be old, but I can understand the importance of education.”

The ordinary: beyond extraordinary

"I’ve just returned from a full-packed week in Mbale, Uganda after a one-week Management Committee Training in Nazareth, Ethiopia.  Before we got down to model discussion and further training, the Uganda team had organized two days of “surprise” field visits where we appeared unannounced in front of startled and often flustered groups.  Ugandans, usually so hospitable, were dismayed that visitors had arrived who they had not had time to prepare a song, a dance or a small meal for. We squeezed ourselves into the Treasurer’s house of the first group and I soon found myself sitting on the dirt floor, legs stretched out in front of me, hands in the hands of the women sitting next to me as they went about the business of paying their weekly savings and loan payments.  Five women were making loan installment payments that day on business such as wholesale fruit and vegetable stalls, mandazi selling (a sweet fried dough) and school uniform tailoring.  Each woman spoke about how she had been able to start or improve her business through taking her loan from the group and passbooks were shyly passed around showing the total amount that each woman had saved. The Management Committee proudly brought forward their rough, hand-made cash box and produced the 3 keys that kept their money safe.  It was the biggest cash box I had ever seen!  They laughed that they were expecting lots of money to come to their group and so they wanted to be prepared. We read the opening pages of “Road to Wealth”, the second WORTH book, in Lugisu and the woman sharing her book with me patiently helped me sound out the words in an unknown language.  She told me she had also had troubles at the beginning.  

These women were changing their lives- right there in the two room house they crowded into every week. In a way they were nothing but an ordinary group, hundreds of similar groups were meeting throughout these hills every week. Some of the other groups we visited were made up of HIV positive women, joining together to fight stigma and make a better life for their families.  Another group had adopted a baby girl abandoned in the marketplace. This group hadn’t done anything heroic or noteworthy in their community- yet. But when I looked at the faces of the women sitting around me I was struck by precisely how Unordinary each woman was as she smiled and hoped and committed herself to her group and to her future.  Sometimes the ordinary can be the thing that moves you the most."

~Erica Tubbs, WORTH Technical Advisor

For more information about WORTH, please visit our website at: http://www.worthwomen.org