Promoting functional literacy for eco-preneurship in poor rural areas

The rural poor are in large part victims of (unsustainable) development policies and practices that have favored urban areas and élites. This uneven development has marginalized large segments of rural peoples, due in no small part to misappropriation of budgetary and development funds, to unsustainable exploitation of natural resources (which lie for the most part in rural areas), and to the inability of planners to cope with the high demands and complexities of development. Functional literacy programs designed to lead to sustainable livelihoods that also improve the quality of rural life are one answer to the problem. Women in particular have proven to be in the forefront of the struggle for a more environmentally healthy future.

The State of the World’s Children 1999 report on education states that “nearly a billion people [855 million in 1997-98] will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names and two thirds of them are women. And they will live, as now, in more desperate poverty and poorer health than those who can (read). They are the world’s functional illiterates – and their numbers are growing.”

At the same time, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), based on 30 years of observation and experience of working with women, has recognized that women hold the key to conservation because of their greater connectedness to the land and their better grasp of the economic value of natural resources when coupled with local community- and culturally-based management methods.

In response to these realities, the ERC, in collaboration with local partners and international sponsors, will facilitate functional literacy programs in earth restoration skills that can empower women in particular. Such training will, for example, bring to light various micro-credit and other opportunities to start up local micro-enterprises that produce and/or market environmentally sustainable technologies. These may include energy-efficient stoves that require less wood burning (and reduce health hazards); one-person treadle pumps for local irrigation; commercial and/or community-based tree nurseries; solar technologies such as solar water heaters and cookers and mini-solar panels to run a light bulb and/or radio for homes with no electricity or energy-draining battery power; biogas production for cooking; sand-cement bricks that require no firing (energy consumption); harvesting and processing medicinal herbs; water purification and soil restoration; community or private vegetable & fruit tree gardens; food processing, including oil presses, based on intermediate technologies; traditional arts and crafts for local use, resale, or marketing abroad; seed banks and tree nurseries for organic gardening.

Women could also profit from functional literacy training to form and manage their own savings & credit groups (village banks) that administer micro credit at the local level by providing members with non-collateral loans based on trust peer pressure. Such loans could, in addition to the activities cited above, be applied for community-building activities such as providing seed money for preschools, village healing clinics, or community stores. Increasing the educational and skills level of poor, functionally illiterate women will also have an impact on poverty reduction and reproductive health. The ERC will collaborate with international and local partner organizations to train and facilitate local NGO staff working at the community level to promote sustainable economic and social activities leading to a healthier environment and better quality of life.