African Women Organizing: Four Ways of Seeing

A study which looks at women’s organizations in Africa from various perspectives, including those which seeks “ways of seeing and knowing that move forward a feminist agenda,” and celebrates the experiences of being “woven in the text. This study is an effort to seek a deeper understanding of women\u27s organizations in Africa, with the belief that understanding informs action. This search proceeds through several phases. First, I discuss how the way we see organizations influences how we work with them and create them. Starting with that idea, I develop a rationale for trying to view women\u27s organizations from multiple perspectives, just as we increase our understanding of a sculpture by viewing from various angles and in various lights. Second, I delineate four broad and interconnected ways of seeing women in society, evident in literature relevant to studying African women. These ways of seeing are: - woman\u27s sphere and woman\u27s power - gender-class relationships - ideology and consciousness - women\u27s voices For each way of seeing, I evaluate what it contributes to understanding African women\u27s experience, and discuss the implications it holds for analyzing women\u27s organizations. Finally I discuss what insights the four ways of seeing might offer to those who work with women\u27s organizations. In looking at women\u27s organizations, and at the frameworks that help us understand them, I am seeking ways of seeing and knowing that move forward a feminist agenda defined in these terms, and celebrate the experiences of being a woman in all their variety

We can even feel that we are poor, but we have a strong and rich spirit : learning from the lives and organization of the women of Tira Chapeu, Cape Verde.

This study explores, through participant observation and interviewing, the meaning of the experience of Cape Verdean women who participate in a base group of the national women\u27s organization of Cape Verde, Organizacao das Mulheres de Cabo Verde (OMCV). The study addresses the significance of this type of organizational activity for Third World women, seeking to illuminate the perspective of women who participate in it. It also has three underlying purposes: (1) to fulfill a goal of feminist research to see the world from women\u27s viewpoint; (2) to aid outside \u27helpers\u27 of such organizations to understand them more fully; (3) to contribute to theory-building about women organizing by examining multiple theoretical perspectives in light of a Cape Verdean group\u27s reality. Based on 20 months of field research carried out during 1989-1991 with the OMCV base group in a low-income peri-urban neighborhood of the capital city, the study asks: What are the relationships between important themes in the women\u27s lives and the activities and issues of their group? To answer this question, I studied the women\u27s words about their lives and their group, revealed in individual interviews, group discussions, and informal conversation, and blended these with my participant observation experiences with the women, their group, and their community, situated within the national context. The study chronicles and reflects on this process of doing research across cultures using an interactive, interpretive approach within an openly feminist research program. From the study of the women\u27s life stories, four major themes emerged: (1) the economic imperative and women\u27s responsibility for survival, (2) the dynamics of help ties, (3) self-respect, pride, and status, and (4) issues of change and resistance. In the analysis of how these themes relate to women\u27s organization activity, the help relationship symbolized by the madrinha, or godmother, appears key in defining group purposes, functioning, and relations. I suggest that the women\u27s organization expresses tensions evident in Cape Verdean society at large involving gender, economics, and social relations and status, while it also serves as a subtle challenge to the status quo in the consciousnesses of women

Leadership for Social Justice: Capacity-Building Resource Manual

This manual supports the development of new leaders committed to social justice. As a resource for facilitators of workshops and other education and training events, it shares session designs, exercises, handouts, short readings, and other materials that were developed through our work on Leadership for Social Justice Institutes organized at the request of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program

Transforming Society, Transforming Leadership

For several years, SIT Graduate Institute worked with the Ford International Fellows Program (IFP) to provide IFP fellows worldwide with training and reflection on their engagement as leaders for social justice. Out of this effort grew a conceptual framework on “leadership for social justice” and a capacity-building resource manual derived from the Leadership for Social Justice (LSJ) Institutes we carried out. Since that time, a few members of the LSJ project team have been undertaking further research on social justice leadership from varied perspectives. In addition, SIT Study Abroad Academic Director Azim Khan is an IFP and LSJ Institute alumnus, served as an alumni facilitator for the final LSJ Institute in Washington, DC, and is enacting leadership for social justice in his work in India. We would like to present case studies from our research and our experiences with leadership with social justice, along with the LSJ conceptual framework, at the SIT Symposium. The case studies narrate the stories of diverse initiatives focusing on social justice work in Mali, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and several parts of India. Brief introductions to the case studies are included below. The case studies and experiences provide rich understandings of the strategies and challenges of making transformational social change in varied contexts, and of the nature of leadership for this purpose. The emerging learning from these experiences will provide a critical examination of the relevance and usefulness of the LSJ conceptual framework. In particular, this work will highlight the role of context, gender, education, and advocacy in relation to development and practice of social justice leadership. Social justice leaders are reimagining the meaning of leadership and reinventing it in practice on a daily basis. Lessons from their experiences go to the heart of our pedagogical purposes at SIT. We are also very interested in utilizing this opportunity to find colleagues in other parts of SIT and World Learning working on related topics, in either their research or their practice. We welcome them to suggest ideas for enhancing the session to include their thinking, research, or experiences

Using Mobile Health to Support the Chronic Care Model: Developing an Institutional Initiative

Background. Self-management support and team-based care are essential elements of the Chronic Care Model but are often limited by staff availability and reimbursement. Mobile phones are a promising platform for improving chronic care but there are few examples of successful health system implementation. Program Development. An iterative process of program design was built upon a pilot study and engaged multiple institutional stakeholders. Patients identified having a “human face” to the pilot program as essential. Stakeholders recognized the need to integrate the program with primary and specialty care but voiced concerns about competing demands on clinician time. Program Description. Nurse administrators at a university-affiliated health plan use automated text messaging to provide personalized self-management support for member patients with diabetes and facilitate care coordination with the primary care team. For example, when a patient texts a request to meet with a dietitian, a nurse-administrator coordinates with the primary care team to provide a referral. Conclusion. Our innovative program enables the existing health system to support a de novo care management program by leveraging mobile technology. The program supports self-management and team-based care in a way that we believe engages patients yet meets the limited availability of providers and needs of health plan administrators