As we celebrate International Women’s Day this weekend, I am thinking of the women on the front line of climate change and those we work closely with in communities and villages in Uganda, writes Eithne McNulty of Self Help Africa, writing exclusively for Business First.
Ahead of International Women’s Day I have just returned from visiting the country in my capacity as Overseas Officer for Self Help Africa, where I administer an Irish Aid funded programme on behalf of the charity.
I have a real interest in gender equality and I focus on the role of women in the developing world and on the impact of climate breakdown on their lives.
Rather than seeing this merely as my job, I consider it a privilege to travel to Uganda on two or three occasions each year to be able to witness firsthand the remarkable work the charity is doing in Soroti. Hearing touching stories from the women farmers and of the demands life places on them but seeing how they face each day filled with gratitude and sheer joy.
Meeting the women who own and manage small farm holdings in order to provide for their families with the help of Self Help Africa is a most humbling experience. Women farmers are evolving, adapting and changing the way that they farm – and ensuring that there is a future for food production in Africa.
Self Help Africa is working with local communities in sub-Saharan Africa to make small daily changes that have real impact and I love nothing more than speaking to women’s groups in Northern Ireland and sharing stories about the difference we are making to womens’ lives in Africa.
We have farmers who have started womens’ groups in their local communities to empower other women to create small plots of green in the dusty ground, developing a vegetable garden for feeding their families and where women are trained in best practice of banana production. They also learn the benefits of working with fuel-efficient mud stoves to assist with tree planting.
My passion for international development began when I worked on a range of social justice and poverty alleviation projects, many with a focus on women, in my early career in Republic Of Ireland.
I moved to Northern Ireland in the 1990s where I worked on a EU funded rural development programme and later on a EU Peace funded programme with women in rural border areas and Belfast’s Falls and Shankill Roads. I was also an active member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in the lead up to and following the Good Friday Agreement.
Making a move to international development in 2006, I managed the Northern Ireland region for the Aid Agency Trocaire and then joined Self Help Africa in 2016, focusing on their poverty reduction programme in North Eastern Uganda.
I hold a Masters Degree in Social Science from the University of Ulster, Coleraine. I live in Fermanagh and have three grown daughters.
If you would like to find out more information about Self Help Africa, about volunteering in your local area or in your local Self Help Africa shop and if you would like to donate, please visit www.selfhelpafrica.org.
If you would like to find out more about how you can get involved in helping women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa or if you would like to find out more about the work that Eithne does in Uganda, email [email protected].
