Women's Empowerment in Africa

Members of the Damnatena Women’s Agricultural Cooperative in Demnate (Azilal province, Beni Mellal-Khenifra region) completed the Imagine empowerment 4-day workshop at the end of August with the High Atlas Foundation’ (HAF) Farmer-to-Farmer and Family Literacy teams.

The women of Demnate built their capacities through this continuous holistic process of cognitive, psychological, social, and economic empowerment with the intention to improve their economic future and quality of life.

HAF’s training courses bring a diverse group of women together to learn from each other, looking critically at their work to build a stronger cooperative. The participants on this occasion included youth and adult women from a range of backgrounds. As the course progressed, it explored these differences and challenged the participants’ views.

The women developed a set of strategies for research, documentation, networking, influencing, training and using media in their cooperatives. However, many of the women who participated spoke about the challenge of acquiring life skills and the search for meaning in their lives. They wanted something in their minds “besides the everyday.”

Where a workshop creates space for the discussion of issues and for questioning the meaning of “a happy life,” this can lead to exploring the problematic connection between life issues and “getting ahead.” In this way the nature of challenges in life can be broadened and the possibilities of social change strengthened.