TRAINING WOMEN IN THE SAHEL

The Ministry of Education will implement the project (a follow-on of A.I.D."s Equal Access Project) with the help of the short-term U.S. and African consultants and the Peace Corps. A cadre of GOUV extension agents (EA"s) to train women will be formed. A two-building training center for EA"s will be constructed in Dori to house project offices, classrooms, dormitories, a demonstration gardening plot, and handicraft boutique. A 3-month intensive training course administered to 25 male and female EA"s will cover traditional activities of Sahelian women (e.g., pottery making, market gardening, water and wood gathering, child and home care); new practices, such as introduction of health kits or stores; transmittal of credit use and repayment concepts to villagers; and project monitoring and reporting methodology. EA"s will work in about 50 villages (one EA per village). A competence in French and Fulani and six years of primary schooling will be required of them. The EA"s will establish in each village a committee of male and female residents who will respond to the EA"s ideas about potential project activities. Two women committee members, who will receive short-term training and annual refresher courses, will work as paraprofessionals with the committee and EA to identify possible activities and will help to motivate other women to maintain project involvement. Interventions to be implemented in the villages will include income generating activities (e.g., collective crop production and marketing, stores, soap-making, cheese and livestock production); labor saving activities (e.g., mills, donkey carts, handpumps); and upgrading of health standards by nutrition and hygiene education. Instruction in local language literacy and midwifery will also be offered. Some 2,000 Sahelian women are expected to benefit from the project. An 11-item bibliography (XD-AAG-153-1) is included.