Posted Date: May 20, 2001
Women Lead the Way in Food Distribution
Women Lead the Way in Food Distribution
As a result of the Beijing conference, the World Food Program instituted "gender-balanced relief committees" to distribute food. In the past, the World Food Program simply asked the village chief (almost always a man) to decide which families were most in need of food. But, "as one person, they [the village chiefs] had difficulties defining the most vulnerable people in the area," according to "New Voices of Leadership," a WFP video about their program in Sudan. "So we were never sure if the food was reaching the people who really needed it."
Now, in Sudan as well as in Nepal, Cambodia and Madagascar, the women and men in an area elect representatives by a consensus process to serve on a relief committee. The committees are gender-balanced and are usually chaired by a woman. Once the committee decides on the most needy families in the area, the food is handed over to the women of that family. The presence of women on these committees is crucial, because, as one Sudanese man said, "the condition of people in these houses are known to my wife better than to me, because if they are suffering, they will come to my wife for help."
Women are empowered by serving on these committees, because it is often a woman’s first leadership role. "This work that we have started with the relief committees is just the beginning," said Agor Majok, a relief committee leader in Sudan. "If we do good work now, the men will appreciate what women can do. And little by little, it won’t be surprising if we get into positions like chiefs and sub-chiefs."
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