Fair Trade Helps

Tackling the Health Care Debate: 3rd Stop: Afganistan, Ethiopia, Swaziland, & Mali

February 10, 2010 at 1:27 pm fairtradeliz Leave a comment

For thirty years Ellen Dorsch worked in public health in program development, evaluation, and administration in the States, East Africa, Central America and Russia. So when she left her consulting business 7 years ago , her friends and colleagues asked if she would miss working in public health. Ellen thought not and focused her energies on a Fair Trade business called Creative Women, importing elegant textiles from Ethiopia. She wanted a business with a social mission. She wanted to create jobs. Soon, however, she realized that she didn’t leave public health altogether, but was impacting women’s lives from a different perspective.

Azana Weaver

“I’ve expanded my definition of Public Health and believe that employment is as necessary for good health as vaccines and clean water. Initially, I argued that financial independence, or at least some earning power, meant a woman could say no to an abusive partner, or could pay school fees for her daughter(s). This became more real to me as I heard stories from some of [my] sewers and cleaners …. For many, this income made the difference between safety and domestic abuse to women and their children, “ Ellen says.

 Ellen’s company, Creative Women, works with many small women-owned business, and feels that “a business owner who pays her employees fairly, gives workers benefits, recognizes the demands on working women, and creates a safe working environment is vitally important to public health intervention.”

 Here are just a couple examples of how Ellen’s producer partners are incorporating health into their fair trade businesses:

* The owner of Coral Stephens, in Swaziland, provides transportation and time off, so that employees can get free and anonymous HIV testing without needing their partners to know.

* At Azana, a small weaving studio in Afghanistan, employees are encouraged to join a free, in house, literacy class at the of their work day. ( Although not usually seen as a health intervention, being able to read, among other things, increases a woman’s ability to find work and to provide clothing, health care, good food, and school fees for her kids.)

Ellen also describes the importance of women working with other women in these group settings. “Working with other women allows women to form the equivalent of support groups, where they a share information about their bodies, bringing up their kids, and their rights. In some of the workshops that I work with, this dynamic serves a similar purpose as parenting groups, health Education programs, and informal referral groups that are often offered at clinics in the US.”

Whether it be AIDs or other testing, access to healthcare clinics, support groups , or the ability to leave abusive situations, these initiatives are certainly making good changes to families & communities and proving that empowering women through trade is something to smile about.

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Many thanks to Ellen Dorsch at Creative Women for information about her initiatives throughout Ethiopia, Afganistan, Mali & Swaziland.  You can support and learn more about Creative Women here.

 And a second thanks to Disruptive Women, for posting Ellen’s original article, from which this one was based.

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