Africa – Grassroots Women’s Land Academy – 14 Countries – Huairou Commission

WUNRN

The Huairou Commission’s Land and Housing Campaign, through the Women’s Land
Link Africa (WLLA) project, held the first ever Grassroots Women’s Land Academy
from February 4th through 8th in Entebbe, Uganda. The Huairou Commission in
collaboration with the Uganda Community-Based Association for Child Welfare
(UCOBAC) organized and hosted this groundbreaking event. Fifty-five participants
from 31 different organizations and fourteen countries including Uganda, Kenya,
Tanzania, Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe,
Ghana, Zambia, Italy and the United States attended this exciting event.
Participants included a wide spectrum of representatives including grassroots
community leaders, NGO staff and directors, Land Alliance representatives,
activists, local authorities and visiting Members of the Ugandan Parliament.
The Land Academy had a strong focus on experience sharing and peer learning and
provided a unique space for community-based grassroots leaders to celebrate and
share the important knowledge and skills that grassroots women have been
employing to fight for women’s rights to land, housing, property and other core
productive assets. Participating groups developed a deep understanding of
shared and successful strategies, which they were able to take back to their
own communities.

Grassroots Women’s Land Academy Focuses on Peer Learning
and Exchange of Grassroots Women’s Strategies, Practices and Tools

The first day of the Land Academy highlighted important grassroots
strategies such as Community Mapping and Local-to-Local Dialogues. As part of
WLLA project, grassroots women have made significant accomplishments in
improving women’s access to land housing and property in their communities.
Many of the initiatives such as anti-eviction community Watchdog groups have
been a result of WLLA supported community mapping (grassroots documentation)
processes which have empowered women to understand the obstacles to their own
access to housing and land.

The Maasai Women Development Organization (MWEDO), Tanzania
As a result of the community mappings that took place in Tanzania 120 women in
three communities have now appealed to their local authorities to grant women
letters for land ownership (both collectively and individually) in their names.
To date 90 women have received letters from their local authorities granting
them ownership of land [locally recognized]. MWEDO will continue to work with
these women to help them document and survey the land that they have been
granted and to provide continued support for women who seek title deeds to
their land [this is a long and expensive process for which women need both
monetary and legal support].

Following presentations on community mapping, GROOTS Kenya
and Ntankah Village Women’s Common Initiative Group (from
Cameroon) presented on the process and results of their Local-to-Local
Dialogues (L2Ls). L2Ls increase shared knowledge and deepen local authority and
influence holders’ understanding of what are the cultural, social, economic and
political barriers to women owning and controlling land, housing and other
assets within their communities. Presenters and participants agreed that these
dialogues are a harmonious way of discussing and negotiating land issues and
disputes with local authorities. It was found that it is cheaper and more
affordable to converse with local authorities than to go to higher levels of
government and that this reduces corruption while also giving women an
opportunity to showcase their capacity to change their situations [access to
land and housing] and the status quo. It was also found that building stronger
partnerships with local leaders and other relevant stakeholders helped to build
women’s confidence and that these meetings increased women’s chances to resolve
local land disputes as well as to forge new and enhanced relationships between
women and important relevant leaders. Women also voiced that they cannot
succeed in or work in isolation and that working with local leaders helps them
to share and solve problems.

A few examples of tools and strategies presented at the Land Academy
include :

• Women’s micro-finance programs

• Radio listening programs

• Community level workshops conducted by trained peer
  educators

• Production of an educational tools (e.g. books and
  films) for ongoing peer outreach

• Local to Local Dialogues – Dialogues with chiefs at the
  local level

• Widows and orphans support groups

• Reporting cases to relevant authorities

• Publications

• Tribunals whereby widows and orphans testify in front
  of stakeholders

• Community Mapping

• Obtaining marriage certificates, will writing, and
  applying for land titles

• Sustainable agriculture techniques

• HIV/AIDS stigma reduction and education classes

Slum Women’s Initiative for Development (SWID) of Jinja,
Uganda is a new member to WLLA regional network. SWID taught participants about
their multi-level approach to women’s rights to land and property, most of
which stress the importance of women’s livelihoods. For example, they have
started women’s savings club and rotating loans between women to enable them to
make housing mortgage payments and establish credit with banks. They also
organize workshops on women in leadership roles, often with local council
present, which is important for the recognition of women’s rights locally. In
additional they hold Civil Literacy courses so that women can be educated and
aware of their rights. Underlying their work is the persistent challenge to
reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma and work with HIV-positive women in their
community.

During the course of the second day of the Academy participants discussed
why land is important to grassroots women, what strategies were useful in this
fight and the gains and challenges that grassroots women have made up to this
point. The similarities of gains and challenges then gave groups a chance to
see that their strategies fell under similar thematic clusters. These clusters
included: (1) Resource Mobilization and Economic Empowerment; (2) Community
Organizing, Negotiations and Partnerships; and (3) Building Women’s Information
Base. Some common methods and practices used included Community Learning and
Peer Exchanges, Local-to-Local Dialogues, Grassroots Academies, Community
Paralegals, Media Tools (videos, films, booklets, banners), Rotating loans and
Saving and Credit Schemes.

Participants left the second day of the Academy with a sense of
accomplishment resulting from the many initiatives that they have spearheaded
and for the knowledge they shared. The Day’s closing remark said it best, “We
are seeking equality, efficiency, independence, and choice in decision making
roles.”

Legal Work with focus on Paralegals at the Community Level

The third day of the Academy was focused on Community Paralegals and
trainings. The day began with an opening speech, given by Chigozie Udemezue, a
lawyer and consultant to COHRE and FIDA, who has done extensive research in
West Africa on the process and training of paralegals. According to Ms.
Udemezue, Community Paralegals are important figures in grassroots communities
and they often act as the “middle man or woman” between community members and
the justice system. As women’s access to local cultural / traditional legal
systems and legal structures are often fraught with obstacles, Udemezue noted
that community paralegals become important and essential allies for women. For
example, she said “Community paralegals are often able to stand-in for women
and operate as first responders during legal disputes over land and property.
Paralegals can also offer communities civil literacy and education workshops and
classes on women’s rights to land and property. While community paralegal
systems have different processes and styles across communities, their ultimate
purpose is the same.”

Following Ms. Udemezue’s introduction and overview of paralegal systems four
partner groups including Rwanda Women’s Network, GROOTS Kenya, Seke Rural Home
Based Care from Zimbabwe, and the International Women’s Communication Centre
(IWCC) from Nigeria presented on their 2007 community paralegal training
programs. Highlighted below is Rwanda Women’s Network’s paralegal training
process and their training manual.

Rwanda Women’s Network Community Paralegal Training 2007
In Rwanda the Land Law is particularly vague about the details on how women and
men’s equal rights to land will be realized and inheritance / succession laws
do not protect the rights of women in cohabitation and consensual unions. Women
living in cohabitation and consensual unions with men still comprise a large
number of the population who remain unprotected by the Land Law. Rwanda Women’s
Network (RWN) has been working on women, land and property rights for the past
several years. In the past year as a result of WLLA project seed funding and
funds raised from other partner organizations RWN was able to develop a community
paralegal training manual. So far the manual is only in English but the
organization is planning to translate it into the local language as well as to
develop the manual into a useful popular tool with illustrations for those who
are not literate. They began with a meeting with Legal Aid [in Rwanda] to see
if there was a manual in existence to address the target group they wanted to
work with [grassroots women]. There was no such manual in existence at the time
and they [Rwanda Women’s Network] began to develop their own. The women who
participated in community paralegal trainings, in collaboration with RWN,
helped to develop the paralegal training manual. RWN also trained communities
in two districts. So far, 30 people have gained paralegal knowledge &
skills, and the manual and trainings were a spring board for RWN in
establishing a strong paralegal program within selected communities that they
operate within.

Analyzing the Successes & Challenges of the WLLA
Project and the Way Forward

The fourth day of the Academy took a new turn with an end to presentations
and a deeper focus on analyzing and planning how to strengthen the WLLA joint
regional network and to imagine what activities and future partnerships WLLA
network members wanted to engage in. The day’s challenges focused on figuring
out how grassroots women want to cooperate in order to strengthen both the
development of the regional network as well as the larger movement on women’s
equitable access to land and property. While it was clear that all the
participants [and their respective organizations] have been contributing
extraordinary amounts to their communities, questions arose on what best
strategies and practices should be a point of focus during the second phase of
the WLLA project. Participants discussed what kind of collaboration groups
would like with and between one another during the second phase of the WLLA,
what activities they would like to embark upon and what impacts being a part of
WLLA will have on their group and the women of their communities.

This day also set the stage for planning for the year ahead, and clarified
grassroots women’s collective regional vision and how each participating
grassroots groups and NGOs could grow and implement the WLLA project
initiative. Even though participants came from different countries, different
contexts and different organizational structures (from small community-based
groups to large scale NGOs) participants had a common goal of how they
envisioned bottom-up growth and the development of a new power base. Throughout
the process there was a great deal of eagerness to link through the WLLA
network and to combine and increase visibility for the good work that
grassroots women’s groups have been doing.

The final day of the workshop was focused on recognizing that when
grassroots women need to meet challenges, the larger the numbers are, the
stronger their voice. It is a goal of the Huairou Commission and the WLLA
partnership project to ensure that women’s groups are better connected to each
other through a regional peer learning network. Participants concluded that the
WLLA project provided a unique opportunity for change regarding both individual
projects focused on increasing women’s access to land and housing, to increased
networking between organizations nationally, regionally and globally. The Land
Academy’s discussions were rich, varied, and thought provoking. Participants
left inspired and eager to begin their work and communication with their new partners.

For more information on the Land Academy, write to Nicole Ganzekaufer: nicole.ganzekaufer@huairou.org

 

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