Four excellent videos on women and water from the TheWaterChannel.
The first one is Women and the Water.
Women have traditionally played an important role in almost all agriculture and livestock activities of the farm. They also have a key role in securing the household food and water availability through fetching and collecting water and water rational use at farm and household level. However, women participation in water resource management is still hampered by their lack of decision-making power.
It is necessary to establish a special knowledge base related to this issue. It is equally necessary that the knowledge base exists not only as a specialized, vertical thematic, but as a common, horizontal case of study into all information management and knowledge generation activities. These activities connect to the gender dimension as an important element in Integrated Participatory Water Management (IPWM), and ensure the interests and need of women as well as men. In the Mediterranean countries, particularly in the developing ones, we are still in need of a hard work and great efforts to bridge the gap between women and men in order to bring women into the mainstream of the decision making processes, and the creation of this knowledge base will be very useful towards achieving this objective.
The growing momentum of women entrepreneurs and their contribution to the GDP have proved in most countries on the Mediterranean to be a driving force in supporting the emerging of the region’s economy. The MELIA project has created a debate around an analysis of the factors, the organizational structures and the legal frameworks that can confer to IPWM and gender-dimension implementation.
This next one is Women's Voices.
This film shows the sustainable experience of four communities in establishing drinking water supply and simplified sewerage systems in the peri-urban area of Santiago de Cali, Colombia. It gives some evidences about the importance of developing this kind of projects involving communities with a gender approach.
Abu Hamad, a vast and isolated desert community 500 kilometers from the Sudanese capitol Khartoum, is on the verge of disproving a long-held belief among public health professionals that river blindness (onchocerciasis) cannot be eliminated in Africa due to poor health care delivery and the disease's prevalence.
In this three-part video journal, join Carter Center expert Dr. Moses Katabarwa and his colleagues from the Sudan Ministry of Health and Lions Clubs International Foundation in the field as they guide and support the pioneering community-based approach that has brought this debilitating and potentially blinding parasitic skin disease to the brink of elimination.
Traditionally, women have been the primary health caregivers in Abu Hamad, but their roles were diminished by the introduction of modern medicine, a male-dominated field. Today, local attitudes are changing again. Women make up half of the community's population, and therefore, their participation in the elimination effort is crucial. The team is excited to see women participating in the river blindness program like never before.
Lastly, it's Women in the Dutch Water Sector.
The Dutch Government’s Emancipation Policy (2007) acknowledges that women’s careers in The Netherlands are fraught with a number of obstructions. In that context, this video tried to explore the status of women in the Dutch water sector. A variety of views is captured: some women argue that the sector is still quite inhospitable to women, others contend that barriers are only in the mind. One thing, however, is quite clear: an official emancipation policy has certainly effected an increased in the number of women water workers over the years.
Today's quote:
"Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water." -- Eleanor Roosevelt
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