A chat amongst women
Last week ActionAid Australia organised an evening to bring women together for an exchange of ideas on issues of women’s rights in a global context. Holly Miller from ActionAid stresses the importance of meeting and chatting to create change for women here and internationally.
In our action oriented society, there’s almost a stigma against sitting around talking. But there’s real power in having a chat. Particularly a chat amongst women.
In the lead up to International Women’s Day last week, ActionAid Australia hosted an event that sought to bring women – and the men that support us – together. The aim of the evening was simply to provide a forum for a bit of a… chat, really, about issues of women’s rights in the global context.
The conversation of the night was between ActionAid ambassadors and prominent Australian feminists, Tracey Spicer and Judith Lucy: two women who have visited ActionAid’s women’s rights programs in Uganda.
And of course, the stories that Tracey and Judith shared – with each other, and with those of us gathered there to participate – were many things at once: overwhelming, sad, inspiring, hilarious.
But as the conversation went on, and when the audience began to participate and share their own experiences, a very clear message began to emerge: there is enormous power in women coming together to talk about their rights and about the issues that face them.
This was a message that echoed from story to story that night about the issues facing women in rural Uganda and how they are being overcome.
One story in particular, about a group of women working together on what ActionAid refers to as the “WORIA project” (Women’s Rights in Agriculture) reflected this notion.
The WORIA project brings women living in rural Uganda together to work in groups to farm the land, and thereby generate their own income that they can contribute to their households, rather than having to rely on the income of their husbands.
And while this is a new thing for many of these women, working together has meant that they have found the strength and the confidence to make the decisions around producing food and taking it to market.
Importantly, while they farm, the women spend time together in a way they haven’t before: working in the fields, creating the farming calendar and marketing their produce.
And this time, of course, means that they are able to have conversations about the issues that affect them – and these conversations have brought about incredible change in the community. For example, many of the women had suffered domestic violence in the privacy of their own homes and were forced to cope on their own, with little understanding of their right to live free from violence.
But coming together and having a bit of a natter about these issues has empowered the women of the WORIA project to stand together to claim their rights.
Talking brings issues to the surface. It builds solidarity. It fosters the determination and confidence needed to bring about change – change that can be brought about by people working together.
And this idea – that there is great power in women having the space and opportunity to come together to talk about women’s rights issues – was reflected in the night itself. It was reflected in the conversation that took place between Tracey and Judith, and the women and men that were there to listen to their stories and to contribute with their own experiences and observations.
There was a great excitement in the room on Wednesday night: a buzz that reverberated around the audience in response to the inspiring stories of change that Tracey and Judith shared, and what I felt was a renewed determination to create change for women here, and internationally, in communities in countries like Uganda.
Holly Miller is the Media Manager at ActionAid Australia, an international organisation that puts women’s rights at the centre of its work. Before working at ActionAid, Holly worked in Laos for two years, supporting people with disabilities to advocate for their rights. She has spent the last three months in the Philippines as part of ActionAid’s emergency response team. Follow her on Twitter: @HollyMiller3
