{"id":42,"date":"2017-07-27T11:41:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T11:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/?p=42"},"modified":"2017-08-04T13:41:23","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T13:41:23","slug":"in-country-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/2017\/07\/27\/in-country-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"In Country Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cAny woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.\u201d<\/strong>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Margaret Thatcher<\/strong><\/p>\n

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All Across Africa weaver showing us how the baskets are crafted<\/p><\/div>\n

Reflecting upon my time and work in Rwanda there were many instances that made me stop and think. Memorable moments were created from the experience of seeing and visiting homes in a rural area, which gave me a picture of living that I hadn\u2019t had before, visiting the genocide memorial, an experience I will probably never completely wrap my head around, and working in a cross cultural company with people from such diverse backgrounds. Although there is something to learn from each experience I have found that my time spent collecting artisan profiles about women has had the greatest impact. Haley and I set out with a goal to conduct interviews with individual artisans weekly to discover more about the struggles they have had to overcome in life, their jobs as weavers with All Across Africa, and how weaving has improved their livelihood. As we gained more experience interviewing the women we gained the confidence to ask questions that revealed more about who the women really are and how they view their life.<\/p>\n

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Haley admiring baskets weaved by artisan Concilide<\/p><\/div>\n

Just this past week, one of our last weeks in Rwanda, we met with a cooperative leader named Concilide who shared her story with us. To me her interview encapsulated what we were truly learning from all these weavers, what it really means to be a woman both generally and in Rwandan society. More specifically, how their gender has defined their lives for the better and the worse. Unlike most other women we talked to she didn\u2019t grow up in extreme poverty but was rather well off thanks to her fathers various businesses. What struck me was her confession that although having the ability to pay for school her father prevented her from continuing past the eighth grade. She described to us how he seemed ignorant of the value of education and that as a girl he didn\u2019t believe it was worth the money. Rather he wished to see her married as a form of economical exchange. Soon she was married but lived in a very poor way because the genocide took away her husbands job and she wasn\u2019t working. She had several kids to care for including a niece she adopted because her sister passed away from HIV infection. Luckily, Concilide learned how to weave and became very successful working for All Across Africa. She has developed her home, feeds her family, clothes them, and takes pride in her ability to send her eight children to school. Even her daughters have been able to complete high school.<\/p>\n

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Weavers gathered at All Across Africa basket house, a place to finish orders for the week but also an opportunity to socialize and build a stronger community<\/p><\/div>\n

From this point in the interview, I asked her about what she thinks of women\u2019s role in Rwandan society. How does she feel now that as a woman she earns the family income and cares for everyone, whereas before she was prevented from advancing due to her gender? Her answer to these questions is what I think will stick with me and helped me appreciate every other artisan we have talked to. She started by explaining, people in Rwanda used to call women, \u201cthe heart of the home\u201d. Which at first I took this as expressing a stereotypical gender role but she explained to us it is something that makes women powerful. Concilide explained when you give a woman money she spends it well, because she knows what to do with it. Women are responsible. If you give them a chance to do something with their lives they will improve, opportunities are created. Not only within the household but also for the society as a whole. Rwanda has seen great strides in development over the past few years and she attributes this to their recognition of women and the government\u2019s priority to give women a sense of agency. She said we think quickly, communicate well, and understand every situation. Concilide concluded by saying, “I was hurt I didn\u2019t get a chance to finish more school because of my gender, but weaving has given me and other women a chance to be powerful and create a better life for us and our children”.<\/p>\n

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A strong and energetic group of weavers from cooperative Copdar<\/em> with All Across Africa orders<\/p><\/div>\n

I think that Concilide’s response represents the power of enterprises like All Across Africa. It also speaks to the Rwandan government who are working to empower women. Women have the capability to do so much for a family, a community, a country, and a nation. Concilde and the other women of All Across Africa have faced struggles I couldn\u2019t even imagine going through, yet they have the courage to look forward towards\u00a0improvement. All of these weavers are doing amazing things, because they have been given the opportunity to do so through economic empowerment. They are breaking conventional social roles for the better.<\/p>\n

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Rwanda’s future female leaders and learners<\/p><\/div>\n

I see these artisans as not only beneficiaries but also entrepreneurs themselves, constantly innovating ways to move ahead. Being given the chance to work with All Across Africa and the weavers has reminded me that gender dictates certain areas of life but that given the opportunity it can be used as a powerful tool towards development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cAny woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Margaret Thatcher Reflecting upon my time and work in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2034,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":0,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"christinaharris","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/author\/christinaharris\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"\u00a0\u201cAny woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Margaret Thatcher Reflecting upon my time and work in … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/christinaharris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}