Sunday June 28, 2009
To put a smile on people\’s faces
By Jim Taylor
Almost by definition, good news is not news. Headlines most often deal with death and disaster. But good news still happens – too often without fanfare. This is one of those stories.
Vida Yakong is currently working on her PhD in medical anthropology at the University of BC\’s Okanagan campus.
Vida comes from Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast, the first West African country to gain independence from the British Empire and to embrace democracy. Ghana was seen for decades as a leader in human rights, education, medical care… In African terms, it is relatively prosperous.
But 30 per cent of the population – higher in rural areas – still lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. Child mortality runs 20 times higher than in Canada; women are 100 times more likely to die in childbirth.
Early years
Vida\’s father had three wives and ten children. Vida was the sixth, the youngest in her mother\’s line.
Younger children, especially female, have little opportunity for education. “My culture does not support women\’s education,” Vida says sadly. “Their only value to the family is the dowry the family will receive when they marry.”
An educated woman, it\’s assumed, will get a job, move away, and expect to choose her own mate.
Vida was lucky. Her oldest sister had a job and paid for Vida to enter primary school.
Then her father\’s friends persuaded him that sending a daughter to school brought him no long-term benefit. He took her out of school, at eight, to became a shepherd tending his flock.
After her father died, Vida returned to Grade 1 — at the age of 11. She completed primary education. But there were no secondary schools she could attend. So she taught herself. She passed the national high school graduation examinations.
She put herself through Community Health Nursing, worked in rural clinics, qualified as a rural nurse practitioner, then came to Canada where she earned a bachelor\’s and a master\’s degree at UBC-Okanagan, and is now working on her doctorate.
Making a difference
But all these were a means to an end. Between courses and jobs, she has returned again and again to northern Ghana.
“I am committed to making a difference in the lives of my people,” she says.
With her qualifications, she could enjoy a comfortable career in Canada. She won\’t. “The money that would support me here can support a thousand people in Ghana,” she explains.
In theory, Ghana has gender equality. In practice, it doesn\’t. Many women don\’t go to government clinics even when they need help. Men get respect; women don\’t. So almost 50 per cent of Ghana\’s women have no medical assistance during childbirth.
Men control the money, too. Wives skimp pennies from selling a few vegetables or eggs, from making charcoal, from milking a goat, to pay for medicines. Including birth control.
If practiced at all, birth control is the woman\’s responsibility. Vida recalls one woman coming to her clinic. “I don\’t have any right now,” Vida said. “Come back tomorrow.”
“I can\’t,” said the woman. “I had to lie to my husband. I said I was visiting my mother. I can\’t use that excuse again.”
Vida had a small motorcycle for travelling from village to village. That day, she used it to carry the woman to another clinic, where she could get what she needed.
Start with the women
Part of Vida\’s task has been convincing women that they deserve better.
In her home village, Vida started meeting with a group of women who had met, years before, with her mother. Instead of presenting a pre-packaged one-size-fits-all program, she asked them to decide what would improve their lives. Steel tools, they suggested. A donkey, for transportation. A goat…
Thus began what\’s known as micro-credit. The women took responsibility for each other\’s tiny loans, ensured payments were made, helped each other succeed…
The same process was, once upon a time, the origin of our own credit unions. It is the foundation of organizations such as Bangladesh\’s Grameen Bank, for which founder Muhammed Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
At UBC, Vida talked with professors and colleagues about her women\’s needs. Five of them formed G.R.O.W. – Ghana Rural Opportunity for Women – as a non-profit charity.
To prevent husbands from seizing women\’s assets, Vida involved the entire village. “I talk to the chief and to the elders,” she says. “We put the money personally into the woman\’s hands. Everyone sees that this was given to her. Anyone who tried to take that away from her would earn disapproval from the whole village.”
Long-term goals
She\’s realistic about what she can achieve. “I don\’t expect to change a patriarchal culture by myself,” she acknowledges. “That\’s why education for children, especially girls, is so important. They can pick up from me when I stop.”
As a volunteer, she supported her community in building a school and put some of her own salary towards paying a teacher.
“I don\’t believe in short term goals,” she says of the task ahead. But she\’s content: “I am satisfied — I am able to put a smile on people\’s faces.”
=====================================
Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn\’t delete your message.
=====================================
Your Turn
One difficulty with these columns is that the newspaper, for which I originally write them, limits me to 850 words. And sometimes that means that I cannot include all of the relevant information; I have to pick and choose which bits to include, which to leave out. On a complicated issue like the legal protection of Search and Rescue teams (last week\’s theme), a lot must get left out.
So fellow journalist Rob Brown in Saskatoon had a few questions to ask: “The thing which puzzles me is the relationship with the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort. Were they staying there, as in overnight, or just there for the day? Had the resort marked areas which were out of bounds? (Seems that the resort had taken that action.)
“And if they had sons, why did the sons not report the parents missing? Were parents and children not keeping in touch with each other on the trip, as one might reasonably expect them to do?
“Finally, are the directors of the various S&R groups volunteers or paid employees? If they are volunteers, are they not individually covered by government insurance of volunteers?”
Rob offered his own opinion: “Being out of bounds and failing to maintain reasonable contact with others, the plaintiffs were entirely responsible for what befell them, and have no one to blame but themselves. Given the circumstances under which the couple acted, the restrictions placed on the RCMP and S&R groups, I cannot see how anyone could hold them responsible. It\’s all part of the general narcissism of 21st century people, generally. You know, \’It\’s all about me!\’”
Just to clarify – provincial liability insurance covers the volunteers for their actions while they are on a Search and Rescue mission; it does not cover them as directors of a society which may involve them in administrative decisions. A volunteer providing CPR to a victim of a rock fall is covered; a volunteer who decides that weather conditions make it too dangerous to send out a search team is not.
Gil Mouat and Bryan St. George must have shared their thoughts about people having to be responsible for their own actions . Both sent two-word responses: “Right on!”
=====================================
About My Paraphrases
Occasionally, I get frustrated by the Bible. Not usually by the message, which is timeless, but by the language and metaphor. Contemporary translations update the language, but not the metaphor, so the text still expects us to respond to images of deserts and tents, camels and droughts, kings and concubines. What we\’ve learned since the Bible was written — about psychology and evolution, about quantum physics and astronomy, computers and fossil fuels – is simply left out.
At such times, I start paraphrasing. I don\’t pretend that these paraphrases rely on new translations of original texts. They are, rather, my way of writing what I think the original writers might have said IF they lived today. Sometimes I stick close to the traditional versification; sometimes I take liberties.
My paraphrase of Paul\’s letter to the Romans attempts to put Paul\’s sometimes convoluted words — and argument — into a contemporary setting. If Paul were writing today, to the Christian church, I\’m not sure he\’d worry as much about the failure of the Jews to follow Christ as about the failure of Christians to follow Christ, so I have rephrased in those terms. I suspect he would also make use of quotations from the Gospels — which of course didn\’t exist when he wrote his letters — rather than using quotations from the only scriptures he had available, which we call the Old Testament.
About 200 people have requested the paraphrase of Romans, as an electronic file.
I now have two new paraphrases available, for Ecclesiastes and Job. Ecclesiastes sticks pretty much to the biblical flow of verses – though with, I hope, some sense of humour. Job cuts 42 chapters down to about three pages. I found the speeches in Job interminable; the only way I could make sense of the various characters\’ verbal meanderings was to turn them into television sound-bites.
I\’m making these available the same way as Romans – on the honor system. You send me an e-mail and request the file you want. I\’ll send it. If you like it, and want to keep it, you send me a cheque for $5 by snail mail. If you don\’t like it, simply erase it from your hard disk and send nothing.
=====================================
TECHNICAL STUFF
To comment on something, in these columns, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the addresses above. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@quixotic.ca.
You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. (It\’s also included in Ralph Milton\’s e-newsletter Rumors.) To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at the addresses above, or send a note to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don\’t think I\’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site,
- David Keating\’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Dan Strizek\’s Gathering Place for Creation Spirituality
- Alva Wood\’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not terribly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
- Jim Henderschedt\’s occasional e-zine, Fresh Water, subscribe by writing him, jimbet1219@verizon.net