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Empowering the women of the Sahel.


 A representative of the Naam movement, a grass-roots organization of women in Burkina Faso, Ramata Sawadogo, speaks about her work as a health educator. She had worked in the health system but became disillusioned because most health problems of her clients were related to poverty. Now she works with the Naam movement to help spread the acceptance of family planning. Within the last 1 or 2 generations, women are having twice as many children because the traditional birth-spacing customs are in decline. Ms. Sawadogo explains the effect of large families by analogy with the local custom of planting only 2 millet seeds per hill. She also emphasizes to people that family planning includes treatment for infertility, sexually transmitted diseases, and menstrual problems. Now even mothers-in-law are beginning to realize the need for family planning. Marked changes in attitudes are evident because people can discuss and even laugh at sexual issues, which were formerly taboo even between spouses. Men are helping women with their work to some extent, or lending them bicycles to go to market. Another dramatic success of the Naam movement is the soap-making enterprise, with soap sales totaling US$135/week, the equivalent of a civil servant's salary. Women are trading vegetables and their labor to pay back loans for soap-making equipment. Ms. Sawadogo urged clinic staff to treat local farmers with extreme courtesy, since their reception will influence whole villages about the motivation of those offering family planning.
