Based on our initial nationwide research and training program in 2015-2016, we know that rural women and girls in Ecuador find themselves as intended victims in extortion and coercion situations. Present health/economic emergencies may worsen this threat. Our project now is to assist women and girls to uncover powerful anti-extortion/anti-coercion tools that are hiding in plain sight in their own communities; and to train themselves to successfully and safely navigate those situations.
Hardly anyone knows how to successfully, ethically, and safely navigate government-functionary extortion or coercion situations. Truer, now, that we are going through severe employment and economic times due to the pandemic Women and girls can face more serious problems in those situations. Through this project, they will self-train to ethically and safely get what is rightfully theirs and fulfill their professional obligations, without submitting to extortionate or coercive pressures.
Discovering from their own experiences in bribery, extortion, and coercion situations and sharing this Knowledge with their own community. The Positive Deviance Approach has successfully helped individuals and some communities to successfully, ethically, and safely navigate extortion and coercion situations without outside resources, without massive amounts of government involvement or financial intervention, and without additional personal risk for those involved.
Working with the original rural women leader participants to extend this program directly to their own communities so that the successful, ethical and safe navigating of "government functionary extortion" situations becomes the cultural and societal norm in parts or in all of the rural regions of Ecuador. Furthermore, being successful in these very difficult situations leads to greater self-respect and self-confidence to handle other difficult situations.
