Low-cost Technology can Have Life-changing Impacts for Rural Women

Access to technology which is relatively inexpensive to deploy can have a life-changing impact for rural women, social scientist Valentina Rotondi told IPS.

Changing the Lives of Bangladesh’s Rural Girls by Giving them a Tertiary Education

Nila Kispotta, a 19-year-old rural girl from the Oraon ethnic community, has become a figure of exceptional achievement to the small, poverty-stricken village in Thakurgaon in northwest Bangladesh that she grew up in. Born into a family of daily wage earners, Kispotta dreamt of a different life. So when she enrolled in tertiary education to pursue a diploma in Nursing Science and Midwifery — she achieved something her family and community hadn’t even dreamed was possible.

Deported Salvadoran Women Pin Their Hopes on Poultry Production

Salvadoran farmer Lorena Mejía opens an incubator and monitors the temperature of the eggs, which will soon provide her with more birds and eggs as the chickens hatch and grow up.

Four Fast Facts to Debunk Myths About Rural Women

We are lucky to live in a country that has long since abandoned the image of the damsel in distress. Even Disney princesses now save themselves and send unsuitable “saviours” packing. But despite the great strides being made in gender equality, we are still failing rural women, particularly women farmers.

Women on the Edge of Land and Life

November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

Guardians of Life and of the Earth

Around the world, but especially in the planet’s poorest regions, women represent a life force that renews itself daily, sometimes against all odds.

Rural Water Projects Depend on Women

During the dry season, when dirt roads are cracked from the relentless heat, the sight of women walking miles, balancing pots of water on their heads, is common in rural Sri Lanka.

Cooperatives Help Women Farmers Tighten Ranks

It is a tried and tested truth that when women come together in groups they can address their issues more powerfully than they can as individuals.

Climate Change Drives Exodus to Jakarta

Another month of plying his ‘becak’ (trishaw) in the capital city and Sarjo will be coming back to this West Java district to harvest the rice ripening on his 1,400 sq m paddy.

Nothing to Show for Hard Work but Burnt Fields of Maize

Gertrude Mkoloi earns a living harvesting maize on a small piece of land in rural Zimbabwe. Or at least she used to.

KENYA: Microloans, Greenhouses Help Women Cope with Climate Change

At Gakoromone Market in Meru, in Kenya’s Eastern Province, Ruth Muriuki arrives in a pickup full of tomatoes and cabbages despite the scarcity of rainfall in the area, thanks to the greenhouse technology she uses on her farm – and microcredit.

PERU: Time to Adapt to Climate Change Impact on Women’s Lives

This year’s unusually rainy season in Peru is having a negative effect on the wellbeing and health of women in rural areas who are forced, for example, to spend three times as much time walking to collect firewood and water. But the authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the problems they face.

ZAMBIA: No Longer “Waiting for the Mangoes to Ripen”

Eight years ago when Mary Sitali’s husband divorced her, by sending a traditional letter to her parents saying that he no longer wanted her and they could "marry her to any man of your choice - be he a tall or a short man, the choice being entirely yours," she returned to her village in rural Zambia with their two children and no way of supporting them.

Q&A: Where Abusing Women Is “An Accepted Norm”

Violence, torture and other forms of cruel treatment are on the rise for women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow? – Part 1

Agriculture currently provides a livelihood for roughly 1.3 billion smallholder farmers and landless workers, of which nearly half – close to 560 million – are women.

Rural Women in Latin America Face Myriad Hurdles

"Sometimes I think of giving it all up,” Aura Canache, a small farmer in Venezuela, told IPS. “My neighbours get loans and aid, but I never have. The farm assistance plans are for men, although there are many women living off the countryside too.”

Women, Victims of War, Have No Seat at Negotiating Table

When the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) held its inaugural meeting in London back in 1946, the U.S. delegate, Eleanor Roosevelt, read an open letter to "the women of the world" calling on governments to encourage women everywhere to participate in national and international affairs.

Q&A: How to Reverse the “Feminisation of Poverty”

The phrase "financing for gender equality" may sound dry, but it lies at the heart of some of the most intractable problems faced by women around the world today – and whether the political will exists to allocate real resources to solving them or simply pay lip service.

ARGENTINA: Invisible Rural Women

"I had never worked before, and now I produce kilos and kilos of dried fruit to sell. They taught me how to dry peaches, tomatoes, peppers and grapes, and I decided on my own to try it with melons and pears - and they were spectacular," Susana Robledo, a proud new entrepreneur from rural Argentina, told IPS.