Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

This is my report based on my visit to Ethiopia as part of the Yirgacheffee-Abergavenny community link accompanying the Southern Ethiopia Gwent Health Link in October-November 2007.

It is government policy to help, advise and encourage poor women who want to work, to set up co-operatives to enable them to make a living. The government policy encourages women to actively participate in the future development of Ethiopia.

We met with a group of six women. There was a seventh, but her child had died the day before, so she could not attend.

There had originally been eleven women who got together to form the co-operative, which buys a raw foodstuff called cocho, from merchants and farms.

Cocho comes from the false banana plant (no fruit is produced on this plant) .It is pulverised and fermented then made into a bread-like food which is eaten with a popular local food called kitfo.

The ladies buy the cocho, then wash and clean it. They then package it in 1 kilo bags and sell it to the townsfolk.

They bought a small shop in the town, from which they sell the packages of cocho. They work in a rota system, looking after each others children whilst others work.

It is unclear how the Bryn y cwm community can assist ladies like these, but it is a fascinating topic and worthy of thought and debate.

SOCIAL CUSTOMS

Whilst with us, these ladies indicated a wish to talk to us about other aspects of their lives as ordinary women in Ethiopia.
Girls used to have arranged marriages when they were as young as 12. Most girls now wait until they are 18, but can marry when they are 15.

Because of a chronic shortage of jobs, girls tend to leave school and work around the home or get married. Boys stay at school because traditionally they don’t work around the house.

Pregnancy out of marriage is frowned on by the community. Birth control and family planning is readily available, with condoms, pills, injection and implants freely available with no charge.

Unwanted pregnancy does occur however, and although abortions are available at health centres, though not at Yirgacheffe, there was a reluctance to go. Up to the 3rd month of pregnancy, the women seek the help of the local wise woman, using locally made traditional herbal drugs to abort the pregnancy. This carries a risk of death but is accepted by the women.

WOMENS COMMENTS ON THE HEALTH CENTRE

The ladies were not keen on the health centre. They felt that often they were put in the hands of trainees. They were usually told to go and buy drugs they needed in town, which they could not afford. They said they were not treated with privacy or dignity.

When asked if they would use the health centre is it was improved by being cleaned, painted and made to look better they gave on overwhelming yes!