I set out to start a non-profit organization to better lives in the subsistence farming community of Maji. I soon learned that everything I do for the community impacts women disproportionately.
This is partly because women touch every part of the life of a farming family. The men in Maji plow, plant and harvest. Their wives grow vegetables, herbs and fruit in the homestead garden; bear and raise children; care for aging members of the family; carry water and wood; provide food; take produce to local markets on foot; and help their husbands in the fields. It’s not hard to find ways to address women’s issues.
MDC began with a request from the Maji clinic for a solar light to illuminate night births. I knew that the lack of electricity was a hardship; I hadn’t thought what it meant for mothers giving birth—one of the most vulnerable moments in a woman’s life.
What else does the lack of electricity mean for a woman?
I began to understand more and more. It means carrying extra wood to light the house at night, as well as to cook. It means carrying water further because they have to walk to where water is available in nature. It means sexual violence in the dark of night. It means caring for cattle in the dark. It means caring for babies and sick family members without light. And so Maji Development Coalition began working with Ethiopian solar businesses and foundations to bring solar light to Maji family homes. To bring power to the only hospital in over 100 miles. To power the pump in the town well—clean water for 800 families.
What else does the lack of electricity mean for a woman? I began to understand more and more. It means carrying extra wood to light the house at night, as well as to cook. It means carrying water further because they have to walk to where water is available in nature. It means sexual violence in the dark of night. It means caring for cattle in the dark. It means caring for babies and sick family members without light. And so Maji Development Coalition began working with Ethiopian solar businesses and foundations to bring solar light to Maji family homes. To bring power to the only hospital in over 100 miles. To power the pump in the town well—clean water for 800 families.
MDC also directly addresses women’s disempowerment in the local economy by working with district leaders who help them form solidarity and savings groups. The first women’s self-help group formed a co-op and fattened lambs for market. They have cleared land and are planting onions to sell. Now three other self-help groups are organizing themselves to follow that example.
To give them a moment of joy and bonding with their children, MDC also gave these women colorful story books produced by a sister nonprofit, Open Hearts Big Dreams Fund and the Read to Mom project.
Now we are embarked on a complicated project to build a reservoir and pipe water down to eight villages (about 400 families). This will save women the long, steep hike up to contaminated spring for drinking, cooking and washing water.
The district, the local communities and MDC are collaborating on something that will impact the health and daily lives of women more than anything else we could do for them.
We celebrate the heroic work of women in Maji, and the love and generosity expressed by friends of Maji, who make interventions for these women possible. As our Ethiopian water engineer said of MDC, “You are the answer to many women’s prayers!”