Central African Republic

Blog Post:  Posted June 18, 2010, 1:09 pm by Phil Ottum

From our photo library

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Children

A couple of years ago, someone mentioned that I should look at the photography of Mercy Corps staffer, Jenny Bussey Vaughan. At the time she was working in Central African Republic. The disc of images I received was filled with excellent work.

Since then we’ve used her photographs in a variety of ways (two are included in the permanent collection here at headquarters). She mixes beautiful portraiture with evocative detail shots. Jenny’s sense of the moment and use of light is consistently strong.

This photograph feels like her take on Grant Wood’s "American Gothic" from half a world away. The resolute grip this boy has on his simple bent rake draws me into the frame.

Blog Post:  Posted June 2, 2010, 12:21 pm by Allison Huggins

Taking a step forward to protect women's rights

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Marginalized Groups, Education, Citizen Involvement

My name is Allison Huggins and I manage Mercy Corps’ women’s rights programmes in the Central African Republic. I came here after working with women’s groups in Rwanda and Eastern Congo for three years. After my first year working with Mercy Corps, I developed our women’s legal support project after the baseline study that we completed on women’s rights violations showed the extent of violence that women across the country face.

Blog Post:  Posted September 26, 2009, 12:46 am by Cassandra Nelson

Standing up for their futures

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Livelihoods, Education, Economic Development

I went to spend the afternoon with one of Mercy Corps’ partners for the Women’s Empowerment Programme in a slum area on the outskirts of Bangui. The group is called Terrespoir, which translates to Land and Hope. It is a women’s cooperative that focuses on agricultural projects to generate incomes for the women. They also work with unwed mothers in their community, trying to assist them and help them become self-sufficient.

In the Central African Republic there are many young, unwed mothers and they often have a very difficult life. In many cases, the family will disown their daughters and force them out of the house if they become pregnant and are not married. The girl is forced to stop school, if she is fortunate enough to be going in the first place, and she must find a way to fend for herself and her newborn child.

Mercy Corps is working with the Land and Hope group to help them start new projects and improve their overall functioning and effectiveness and better serve the women in the community.

When Denis Akino, Mercy Corps’ Programme Facilitator, and I arrived at the community centre, we were greeted by a group of women singing and clapping enthusiastically.

Women, let’s wake up
Women, stand up
Women, be strong

We are awake, we are awake
We struggle for peace
We, all together, have woken up!

And, as I soon found out, their lyrics were true!

While Denis was working with the group and conducting training, I met with Elodie Fetounon, a 19-year old unwed mother.

Elodie was just 17 and in school when she had her baby, Dominique. When her family learned she was pregnant, everything changed and many of her dreams she had been working hard to make reality came to a crashing halt. Her family threw her out of the house and wanted nothing to do with her. The father of her child denied he was the parent. Elodie was left all alone, penniless and pregnant.

The women of Land and Hope came to Elodie’s assistance. They helped her financially and spoke with her family about the situation and tried to help them resolve their differences. They also taught Elodie how to make jams and preserves so she could earn enough money to support herself and her baby.

Now, with the support of the group, Elodie and her family have reconciled. She was able to go back to school to get her diploma and her preserves business has given her financial independence. She plans to go onto college and so she can get a better job in the future.

And as for the women of Land and Hope, they are working with Mercy Corps to start a new project that will teach more young women, especially unwed mothers, vocational skills so they can support themselves and their children. These women have truly woken up and stood up for their futures!

Blog Post:  Posted September 25, 2009, 8:46 am by Cassandra Nelson

Fighting for their homes

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Education, Citizen Involvement

In the Central African Republic (CAR), women’s rights here are few, and the enforcement of the laws is almost non-existent. Most women are not even aware they have many rights. In a country where almost 70 percent of women cannot read, this is not surprising.

Widows are a group that is particularly taken advantage of and discriminated against. It is common at the death of a woman’s husband that the in-laws will take all the property that is legally due to the wife and dependents. Even more common, is that the government will refuse to pay the pension payments the widow is entitled to upon her spouse’s death.

Mercy Corps is working with the Organisation of Widows and Orphans of Central Africa, a group of more than 150 widows who have joined together to defend their property rights, as well as assist widows and orphans who need financial assistance. The Association of Women Lawyers — another partner of Mercy Corps’ Women’s Empowerment Project — provides free legal counselling to the women, who otherwise would not be able to afford legal fees to defend their rights and keep their property.

I went out with the Mercy Corps Women’s Empowerment Programme Manager to meet several widows in the group and learn more about their challenges. Just outside of the capital, Bangui, we met at one of the widow’s association offices. I heard the painful and traumatic stories of several widows, but I also heard inspiring news from the association about how they have begun to have a real positive impact on defending the rights of the widows.

I spent the afternoon with Marcelinne Gbenou and her neighbour Angele Tikoro — both widows and members of the association. Marcelinne’s husband died last year and was survived by her and their six children, the youngest just four years old. They had a relatively good life prior to his death: two simple homes (one in the village and one in town), enough to eat and all the kids able to attend school. By average CAR standards, they were doing well.

When Marcelinne’s husband died, her brother-in-law came, sold their houses and kept the money for himself. No one questioned the sale of the homes, because it is common for a male to handle the financial transactions in CAR.

Marcelinne was left homeless and without any skills to earn a living and support her six children. Illiterate and never having attended school, Marcelinne was not aware of her rights and unable to navigate the complex legal system to defend her property.

She managed to find a charitable landlord who agreed to rent her a one-room mud brick shack for a very minimal fee. She moved her family in with the few items they had after selling off most of her possessions to pay for rent and food. Her eldest daughter dropped out of school and took a job as a maid to help the family survive.

When she moved into the rental home her new neighbour, Angele stopped in to welcome her. Angele, also a widow who had experienced similar problems when her husband died, urged Marcelinne to join the widow’s association so the group could assist her in taking her case to court.

Angele told her about her case, when her in-laws attempted to take all her family’s property after her husband's death. She joined the widow's association, which got Angele a lawyer who agreed to handle her case for free and they took her case to court. After the first court meeting, the in-laws dropped their action and Angele has not heard from them for the past several years.

Now the widows’ association is taking up Marcelinne’s case to try to get her some of the money from the illegal sale of her homes. It is often a long and complicated process, but with the help of educated and trained lawyers Marcelinne and widows like her are starting to have a fighting chance to protect their property and provide for their children.

Mercy Corps and the widow’s association are also looking at ways to help widows help themselves. On the slate for this year are literacy and basic math classes, so widows are better equipped to manage their homes and exercise their rights.

Coping with the Economic Crisis:

Blog Post:  Posted September 21, 2009, 1:45 am by Cassandra Nelson

'I have never seen a place as poor as this'

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Livelihoods, Food/Nutrition, Economic Development, Conflict & War, Civil Society, Citizen Involvement

I am writing from the Central African Republic (CAR). Not many people know much about this land-locked country slightly smaller than Texas. But the short and not-so-sweet brief on CAR is that it is the second poorest country on Earth after Sierra Leone.

It ranks 178 out of 179 countries on the UN Human Development Index. It’s been wracked by coups, violence and cross-border unrest for the past several decades. It’s in a bad neighborhood, so they say, with the Congo, Chad and Sudan on its borders.

The global economic crisis has hit CAR extremely hard, and devalued the country’s only sources of revenue — mining and timber — by 90 percent. Today, they export almost nothing. Go down to the shipping area and look at the containers — the incoming containers are full; the outgoing ones empty. The pockets of most Central Africans are empty too — that is, the people who are fortunate enough to have pockets. More than two-thirds of the population is living on less than $1 a day.

For the past seven years, I have worked for Mercy Corps in some of the poorest and most devastated places in the world, and I have never seen a place as poor as this.

Mercy Corps has been working here for more than two years to help develop and stabilise the country while meeting urgent needs for food security. A major focus of our work is women’s empowerment. Studies have proven that when women earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their children and households for food, school fees or health care. The amount women reinvest in their families is, on average, more than twice the amount men reinvest. Helping women help their families is a smart bet.

Here in CAR, working with women takes on an even greater significance. Mercy Corps is completing a baseline study here that has uncovered some grim details.

• 1 in every 4 women have experienced violence at the hands of their partner in the last year.
• Sexual violence is pervasive, with 1 in 7 women reporting they have experienced rape in the last year.

The study shows that women of all demographic groups are experiencing violence: all religions, all education levels and all household income levels. It also shows that a woman's personal income was the only indicator that had any effect on reducing rates of violence.

Allison Huggins is Mercy Corps’ Project Manager for the Women’s Empowerment Project — she oversaw the survey and is writing the report. She has spent many years working in Africa with women and is making a real difference here.

She has pointed out many of the problems women face in CAR — and identified some tangible and very doable solutions that Mercy Corps is putting into action. Some of the key actions Mercy Corps is focused on include:

• Promotion of women’s rights and educating people on how they can uphold their rights
• Promotion of positive examples of male behaviour that denounce violence against women
• Increasing services (legal, law enforcement, medical, etc) available to women
• Providing women the opportunity to earn an income and have greater self-sufficiency

Allison took me out to meet some of the women she and her team are working with in the outskirts of Bangui, the capital. The area is called Bimbo, which despite the gravity of the situation made me smile. I had a fleeting thought of titling this blog “No Bimbos in Bimbo.”

We met with a local group that Mercy Corps is working to build-up and support so they can better support women in the community. The group has income generation projects for women and is working to give vocational and literacy training to women. They are also working with Mercy Corps to mobilize their community to protect women’s rights. Denis Akino, Mercy Corps’ facilitator for the Womens’ Empowerment Programme led a session with more than 80 men in the community on women’s rights, and many important leaders attended, giving women’s issues real attention and credibility for the first time.

I met many women in the group and each one had a story about how the organisation has helped them, and how they have come together to help themselves and support each other.

Justine Wakara, a grandmother and mother 9 children, summed it up best: “We are poor but together — if we pool our resources and focus our energy — we can do better. We don’t have to stay this way. Things can get better.”

Coping with the Economic Crisis:

Blog Post:  Posted September 9, 2009, 11:28 am by Fatou Ali

Video: Fatou Ali gets economic independence

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Livelihoods, Financial Services, Economic Development

Hello, my name is Fatou Ali, I'm in Central African Republic.

Today, I found economic independence by getting credit, which allowed me to start a business.

Previously, I led a quiet life with my husband. He had a garage (car repair shop) which allowed him to care for his household by buying food and clothing and paying for health care and schooling for the children. But then life got hard because the repair shop failed. With the little money I had, I tried to start a business, but it didn't work because I lacked the capital I needed. With the advent of Mercy Corps' programme here, I discussed our situation with my husband who allowed me to join one of the Village Savings and Loan (VSL) groups.

Thanks to Mercy Corps, I received a loan that has allowed me to trade. Now I sell corn flour and sugar which provides me with an income.

Today I can support my family by providing food for our table, schooling for the kids, and being able to pay for their health care and clothing.

This experience has given me the courage to speak with other Muslim women and encourage them to discuss their business ideas with their husbands. Other women that join VSL groups can benefit from credit like I did, to develop an income generating activity for the good of their household and the future of their children.

I strongly urge other Muslim women to join community groups and enjoy benefits such as the credit I received which has served me well. Thank you.

My name is Fatou Ali, I'm in Bouar in Central African Republic.