Day 5: ‘We Come Together and Do Awareness’: Economic empowerment adds to security for women in the Solomon Islands

Featuring a perspective from Jillian Ngoro, TTFT Kena Savings Club member

Economic empowerment can be an important way to reduce gender-based violence, according to a recent Radio Australia interview with Dr Andrew Mason, the regional gender specialist for World Bank. Dr Mason clearly defined the link between gender-based violence and economic empowerment, saying, “We need to empower women economically; with economic empowerment comes voice and agency. That’s not the only solution but that’s an important piece of the puzzle.”

IWDA partners Tugeda Tude fo Tomoro (TTFT) and West ‘Are ‘Are Rokotanikeni (WARA) both work to support women’s economic empowerment in the Solomon Islands. WARA developed a manual on “Women and Money” for distribution to women around the Solomon Islands, and TTFT has worked with women to establish women’s savings clubs and provide financial literacy training.

Thus far TTFT has supported the establishment of women-led savings clubs in 14 remote communities across four provinces in the Solomon Islands. The TTFT Livelihoods Officer, Enif Tetsakibo, runs financial training in partnership with the Solomon Islands Credit Union League and then ongoing support is provided by a local TTFT Community Facilitator.

Jillian Ngoro is one of the participants in a group that started in Kena village, on the island of Kolombangara in the Western Province. The following story from Ms Ngoro demonstrates the value of women-led savings clubs and the role they play in facilitating economic empowerment by allowing women to share skills.

Yes, we started Kena’s women’s savings club on August last year (2010). At the beginning of the first day of coming together, more than 50 women attended. We also put together light refreshment as a sign of the opening of our club. We started our club with a contribution of $5 and the first activity we come across is the weaving of home basket called ‘gelo’.

The progress of this women’s club, we did a lot of activities and through this activities we benefited from the money we get from weaving baskets. For example, we weave baskets and put $2 and with that $2 we manage to pay off the things we made during the day.

This club has benefited us a lot, because a lot of us women lack knowledge in a lot of areas especially in cases of weaving. Through this club we came together and learnt local weaving and making fans from those with the knowledge. We benefited a lot because a lot of the young women don’t have the knowledge of weaving and a lot of the things we learnt were taught to us by our elder ladies. In cases of custom, sometimes we come together and do awareness, talking about custom in today’s setting because a lot of women don’t know about customs and also how to respect each other.

Jillian Ngoro, interviewed by Ileama Paul, Tugeda Tude fo Tomoro Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

Listen to the interview with Dr Mason at the Radio Australia website.

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The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. For each of the 16 Days from 25 November to 10 December 2011, the IWDA website will be featuring a different piece to highlight the work of our partners and explore ways that IWDA supporters can take part in the effort to end gender-based violence.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 under 16_Days, Front page, Solomon Islands.