WUNRN
First Grassroots
Women’s Land Academy - Huairou Commission
Part
of the Women’s Land Link Africa Joint Regional Partnership Project
The Huairou Commission’s Land and Housing Campaign, through the Women’s Land
Link Africa (WLLA) project, held the first ever Grassroots Women’s Land Academy
from February 4th through 8th in Entebbe, Uganda. The Huairou Commission in
collaboration with the Uganda Community-Based Association for Child Welfare
(UCOBAC) organized and hosted this groundbreaking event. Fifty-five participants
from 31 different organizations and fourteen countries including Uganda, Kenya,
Tanzania, Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe,
Ghana, Zambia, Italy and the United States attended this exciting event.
Participants included a wide spectrum of representatives including grassroots
community leaders, NGO staff and directors, Land Alliance representatives,
activists, local authorities and visiting Members of the Ugandan Parliament.
The Land Academy had a strong focus on experience sharing and peer learning and
provided a unique space for community-based grassroots leaders to celebrate and
share the important knowledge and skills that grassroots women have been
employing to fight for women’s rights to land, housing, property and other core
productive assets. Participating groups developed a deep understanding of
shared and successful strategies, which they were able to take back to their
own communities.
|
The Women’s Land Link Africa
Partnership Project |
Grassroots Women’s Land Academy Focuses on Peer Learning and Exchange of Grassroots Women’s Strategies, Practices and Tools
The first day of the Land Academy highlighted important grassroots strategies such as Community Mapping and Local-to-Local Dialogues. As part of WLLA project, grassroots women have made significant accomplishments in improving women’s access to land housing and property in their communities. Many of the initiatives such as anti-eviction community Watchdog groups have been a result of WLLA supported community mapping (grassroots documentation) processes which have empowered women to understand the obstacles to their own access to housing and land.
The Maasai Women Development Organization (MWEDO), Tanzania
As a result of the community mappings that took place in Tanzania 120 women in
three communities have now appealed to their local authorities to grant women
letters for land ownership (both collectively and individually) in their names.
To date 90 women have received letters from their local authorities granting
them ownership of land [locally recognized]. MWEDO will continue to work with
these women to help them document and survey the land that they have been
granted and to provide continued support for women who seek title deeds to
their land [this is a long and expensive process for which women need both
monetary and legal support].
Following presentations on community mapping, GROOTS Kenya and Ntankah Village Women’s Common Initiative Group (from Cameroon) presented on the process and results of their Local-to-Local Dialogues (L2Ls). L2Ls increase shared knowledge and deepen local authority and influence holders’ understanding of what are the cultural, social, economic and political barriers to women owning and controlling land, housing and other assets within their communities. Presenters and participants agreed that these dialogues are a harmonious way of discussing and negotiating land issues and disputes with local authorities. It was found that it is cheaper and more affordable to converse with local authorities than to go to higher levels of government and that this reduces corruption while also giving women an opportunity to showcase their capacity to change their situations [access to land and housing] and the status quo. It was also found that building stronger partnerships with local leaders and other relevant stakeholders helped to build women’s confidence and that these meetings increased women’s chances to resolve local land disputes as well as to forge new and enhanced relationships between women and important relevant leaders. Women also voiced that they cannot succeed in or work in isolation and that working with local leaders helps them to share and solve problems.
A few examples of tools and strategies presented at the Land Academy include:
One
example of participating group strategy follows:
Slum Women’s Initiative for Development (SWID) of Jinja, Uganda is a new member to WLLA regional network. SWID taught participants about their multi-level approach to women’s rights to land and property, most of which stress the importance of women’s livelihoods. For example, they have started women’s savings club and rotating loans between women to enable them to make housing mortgage payments and establish credit with banks. They also organize workshops on women in leadership roles, often with local council present, which is important for the recognition of women’s rights locally. In additional they hold Civil Literacy courses so that women can be educated and aware of their rights. Underlying their work is the persistent challenge to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma and work with HIV-positive women in their community.
During the course of the second day of the Academy participants discussed why land is important to grassroots women, what strategies were useful in this fight and the gains and challenges that grassroots women have made up to this point. The similarities of gains and challenges then gave groups a chance to see that their strategies fell under similar thematic clusters. These clusters included: (1) Resource Mobilization and Economic Empowerment; (2) Community Organizing, Negotiations and Partnerships; and (3) Building Women’s Information Base. Some common methods and practices used included Community Learning and Peer Exchanges, Local-to-Local Dialogues, Grassroots Academies, Community Paralegals, Media Tools (videos, films, booklets, banners), Rotating loans and Saving and Credit Schemes.
Participants left the second day of the Academy with a sense of accomplishment resulting from the many initiatives that they have spearheaded and for the knowledge they shared. The Day’s closing remark said it best, “We are seeking equality, efficiency, independence, and choice in decision making roles.”
Legal Work with focus on Paralegals at the Community Level
The third day of the Academy was focused on Community Paralegals and trainings. The day began with an opening speech, given by Chigozie Udemezue, a lawyer and consultant to COHRE and FIDA, who has done extensive research in West Africa on the process and training of paralegals. According to Ms. Udemezue, Community Paralegals are important figures in grassroots communities and they often act as the “middle man or woman” between community members and the justice system. As women’s access to local cultural / traditional legal systems and legal structures are often fraught with obstacles, Udemezue noted that community paralegals become important and essential allies for women. For example, she said “Community paralegals are often able to stand-in for women and operate as first responders during legal disputes over land and property. Paralegals can also offer communities civil literacy and education workshops and classes on women’s rights to land and property. While community paralegal systems have different processes and styles across communities, their ultimate purpose is the same.”
Following Ms. Udemezue’s introduction and overview of paralegal systems four partner groups including Rwanda Women’s Network, GROOTS Kenya, Seke Rural Home Based Care from Zimbabwe, and the International Women’s Communication Centre (IWCC) from Nigeria presented on their 2007 community paralegal training programs. Highlighted below is Rwanda Women’s Network’s paralegal training process and their training manual.
Rwanda Women’s Network Community Paralegal Training 2007
In Rwanda the Land Law is particularly vague about the details on how women and
men’s equal rights to land will be realized and inheritance / succession laws
do not protect the rights of women in cohabitation and consensual unions. Women
living in cohabitation and consensual unions with men still comprise a large
number of the population who remain unprotected by the Land Law. Rwanda Women’s
Network (RWN) has been working on women, land and property rights for the past
several years. In the past year as a result of WLLA project seed funding and
funds raised from other partner organizations RWN was able to develop a community
paralegal training manual. So far the manual is only in English but the
organization is planning to translate it into the local language as well as to
develop the manual into a useful popular tool with illustrations for those who
are not literate. They began with a meeting with Legal Aid [in Rwanda] to see
if there was a manual in existence to address the target group they wanted to
work with [grassroots women]. There was no such manual in existence at the time
and they [Rwanda Women’s Network] began to develop their own. The women who
participated in community paralegal trainings, in collaboration with RWN,
helped to develop the paralegal training manual. RWN also trained communities
in two districts. So far, 30 people have gained paralegal knowledge &
skills, and the manual and trainings were a spring board for RWN in
establishing a strong paralegal program within selected communities that they
operate within.
Analyzing the Successes & Challenges of the WLLA Project and the Way Forward
The fourth day of the Academy took a new turn with an end to presentations and a deeper focus on analyzing and planning how to strengthen the WLLA joint regional network and to imagine what activities and future partnerships WLLA network members wanted to engage in. The day’s challenges focused on figuring out how grassroots women want to cooperate in order to strengthen both the development of the regional network as well as the larger movement on women’s equitable access to land and property. While it was clear that all the participants [and their respective organizations] have been contributing extraordinary amounts to their communities, questions arose on what best strategies and practices should be a point of focus during the second phase of the WLLA project. Participants discussed what kind of collaboration groups would like with and between one another during the second phase of the WLLA, what activities they would like to embark upon and what impacts being a part of WLLA will have on their group and the women of their communities.
This day also set the stage for planning for the year ahead, and clarified grassroots women’s collective regional vision and how each participating grassroots groups and NGOs could grow and implement the WLLA project initiative. Even though participants came from different countries, different contexts and different organizational structures (from small community-based groups to large scale NGOs) participants had a common goal of how they envisioned bottom-up growth and the development of a new power base. Throughout the process there was a great deal of eagerness to link through the WLLA network and to combine and increase visibility for the good work that grassroots women’s groups have been doing.
The final day of the workshop was focused on recognizing that when grassroots women need to meet challenges, the larger the numbers are, the stronger their voice. It is a goal of the Huairou Commission and the WLLA partnership project to ensure that women’s groups are better connected to each other through a regional peer learning network. Participants concluded that the WLLA project provided a unique opportunity for change regarding both individual projects focused on increasing women’s access to land and housing, to increased networking between organizations nationally, regionally and globally. The Land Academy’s discussions were rich, varied, and thought provoking. Participants left inspired and eager to begin their work and communication with their new partners.
For more information on the Land Academy, write to Nicole Ganzekaufer: nicole.ganzekaufer@huairou.org
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