Market women\u27s cooperatives: Giving women credit

In 1972, the Nicaraguan Foundation for Development (Fundación Nicaraguense de Desarrollo—FUNDE), one of two programs sponsored by the Nicaraguan Institute of Development, became aware of market women\u27s need for credit. This issue of SEEDS describes FUNDE\u27s experience in developing savings and loan cooperatives to meet this need. This summary stresses the human aspects of the process as much as the financial and technical ones. The project has been successful because the cooperatives have built upon the existing market women\u27s culture, utilizing all the subtle and complex interpersonal relationships established over the years. In essence what the cooperatives have done is to teach women to use and build on what they have to their own best advantage, by providing them with information, experience, and encouragement

Hanover Street: An experiment to train women in welding and carpentry

The Hanover Street Project, formally known as the United Women’s Woodworking and Welding Project, is an experiment in training women for jobs usually held only by men. Begun in 1976, this was the first such program of the Jamaica Women\u27s Bureau, established by the government during International Women\u27s Year to ensure that women participate fully in Jamaica’s development. The project demonstrated that low-income women can learn non-traditional skills and can work together to improve their lives. Through trial and error, the project is providing the Women\u27s Bureau with a wealth of information about teaching technical skills, working with other government agencies, and establishing self-sufficient cooperative structures. The lessons from this experience extend beyond Jamaica and, hopefully, will be useful to people in other countries who are addressing similar problems

Village women organize: The Mraru Bus Service

The Mraru Women\u27s Group in rural Kenya, like many community women\u27s organizations around the world, is an example of a deeply rooted tradition of association and self-help among women. In 1971 the group began to gather its resources to solve a common problem—transportation. They raised money, bought a bus, and began a public transport service that made money; they now face other difficult questions such as reinvesting profits, serving members\u27 broader needs, and maintaining a strong economic base. The Mraru Women\u27s Group has shown unusual creativity and persistence in identifying common needs and organizing to meet them. They have also demonstrated that a small, private organization with few resources can effectively call on the skills and resources of other agencies, both public and private, to help them achieve their goals, while remaining independent and self-reliant

Implementing the user perspective

Evaluation of birth planning programs has heretofore been done from the service provider or the policy-planner\u27s point of view. It is time to begin evaluating family planning programs from the viewpoint of the user. This type of evaluation would involve measuring continuation rates over time and the degree of benefit over a reproductive lifetime. Evaluation should include individual and subgroup acceptance of various methods of birth control. Knowledge of the clients\u27 needs can be assessed and applied at 3 points in the provision of family planning services: 1) during the planning stage of programs; 2) in response to modern programs, e.g., in response to perceived risks and benefits of certain offered methods; and 3) on a longterm basis, focusing on consequences of birth planning systems to individual health and well-being

Contraceptives and common sense: Conventional methods reconsidered

Since the 1960s, the solution to contraception problems has been based increasingly on complexity, not simplicity. The oral contraceptive was developed in the late 1950s using newly discovered synthetic hormones that act in intricate ways on glands in the brain. Intrauterine devices were widely introduced in the 1960s in a host of scientifically engineered configurations that act inside a woman’s uterus. Nearly half of all married couples in the United States who use some method of contraception use either the pill or IUD. In examining emerging social trends and considering the special needs of some large groups for better contraceptives—adolescents, women over 30, individuals concerned with health and safety—in many respects barrier methods appear to offer a commonsense solution to age-old problems. They offer high effectiveness combined with freedom from short- or long-term side effects and the freedom to be fertile in the future. This Public Issues paper examines how good or bad today’s barrier contraceptives are, and how acceptable they are. New patterns of use and demand for barrier contraceptives in this country are documented, and the potential utility of these methods is considered for couples living in developing countries

Cigarette smoking, use of oral contraceptives, and myocardial infarction

The excess risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction among users of oral contraceptives observed in England and Wales can be explained in terms of the high proportion of smokers in the study population. Among nonsmokers, the relative risk associated with the use of oral contraceptives is estimated to be 2 to 1, which is not statistically significant (p = 0.28, Fisher\u27s exact probability test). The present analysis suggests that smoking be considered as another contraindication for the prescription of oral contraceptives. The results further indicate that those women who smoke as well as use oral contraceptives and are interested in reducing the risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction should be encouraged to give up smoking. The relative risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction associated with the use of oral contraceptives observed in a society can vary between 0.9 to 1 and 11.7 to 1, depending upon the proportion of smokers. From the public health point of view, the reduction in the excess risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction achieved by eliminating smoking is estimated to be much more than can be achieved by eliminating the use of oral contraceptives

Patent: Filament winding apparatus

United States Patent 3,711,03