Given the right opportunities, women farmers take leadership roles and do it well. This is one conclusion that came out strongly in a research validation workshop and reflection session of women farmer leaders held in the Philippines recently.
Eight women farmers belonging to PAKISAMA gathered at Ciudad Christia, Montalban, Rizal last December 16-18, 2011 in order to validate the initial findings of a research project on women leadership and reflect on their experiences as leaders in their communities and organizations, and to draw lessons from these experiences.
With the support of IFAD, WOCAN, Agriterra, and AFA, the validation and reflection session was held as part of a four-country Rural Women Leadership project, which in the Philippines is being implemented by PAKISAMA.
The women leaders were joined by staff of PAKISAMA, AFA, and an independent researcher.
The lessons drawn by the research project will be shared in a learning event to be organized by WOCAN in Nepal in January next year.
The first day of the activity was devoted to a sharing of the stories on what motivated these women to become leaders and the factors and situations that honed them as leaders.
This was followed by an analysis of the qualities of good leaders, their indicators, and the factors that contributed or hindered their exercise of good leadership.
The women leaders also viewed a documentary film “Pray the Devil,” about the successful efforts of Liberian women to lead their war-torn country on the path to peace.
On the third day, the women leaders met with a woman IP leader who now sits as commissioner at the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).
Conchita “Nanay Concing” Calzado, a member of Aeta /Dumagat tribe, and president of SAGIBIN, a base FO composed of indigenous peoples and a PAKISAMA member, shared the challenges she is facing in her government post, including threats to her life and the demands of her work.
She also shared her thoughts on leadership and how she sustains it on a daily basis.
Under the research being conducted by AFA and PAKISAMA, 48 stories from women farmer leaders were collected, and the 8 women leaders in the validation/reflection session represent these stories.
AFA and PAKISAMA is now in year 2 of the rural women leaders project that provided leadership training to 200 women and 50 men from the 10 provinces where PAKISAMA is operating.
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