The material for this week's Update comes from three local women who are making things happen in the world. Lorene Garrett-Browder offers a workshop helping women be better allies for one another. China scholar Helen Young tells us about the potential for a women's microenterprise project in China and calls on the Network's collective mind for assistance. And Ethel-Long Scott, Executive Director of WEAP, reminds us of her organization's web site. To check up on the more than 70 web sites of interest to women and girls linked from our web site, go to http://www.womenswork.org/beijing-sf/
We invite you to join us in removing the barriers that separate us as women and learn skills that support us as women personally and professionally in coming together to actualize and celebrate our gifts, talents, and resources regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, class, age, disability, or sexual orientation.
From Helen Young, hybj@leland.stanford.edu
I have just returned from a research trip in China which took me into the mountains in the northwest corners of three southern provinces: Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan. Many of the areas were extremely poor, well below the national poverty level; the farmers terrace every possible square inch of land for vegetables and cash crops. In several places I saw a few inches of land leveled off for one or two corn stalks with bean plants climbing up them. Amazing what they can do with so little.
The one thing I did see in abundance in every village was plastic garbage. I'm sure women in these areas could turn the plastic garbage into useful products which could be distributed and sold. Friends in Beijing are working on ways to help women become economically independent. They are interested in whatever I can find out about using simple methods to recycle plastic garbage so they can help some women's micro-enterprises get started.
An elementary school teacher in Palo Alto has offered me instructions for making doormats out of plastic bags, using either a crochet hook or a simple loom. Does anyone else have suggestions about other low-tech ways to manufacture useful items out of plastic bags, bottles, etc? Or suggestions of where to find out what can be done without bringing in sophisticated equipment?
I would love to hear comments. Thanks for any help you can give me.
The Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP) in Oakland, which offers training and advocacy for low income women, has a site on the web: http://www.digital.sojourn.org. Check it out!
This online update, published weekly in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, covers events, resources, and information related to follow-up to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women and the issues covered in the Platform for Action document. You are encouraged to send in information and news to Judy Kramer at jahkramer@aol.com. Past updates are available on the web at http://womenswork.org/beijing-sf/