Wanna help a woman fight poverty? Give her the minimum support she needs to find or create a job. She will do it. And allow her to go back to school, to continue her studies from where she left them. She will manage with job, school, kids, house and husband. Nature gifted her with multiple-tasking abilities. She was built for the long run.
I was recently asked by a friend if was still living the dream. It made me reflect. More than four years ago I left my country thinking that I need to do something more than just write about poverty and hope that the authorities spending the public money would actually do something about it. From outside, I pictured very different solutions for fighting poverty. I used to think that providing food and shelter was the Way. And it is, in extreme situations and following natural disasters. I must add access to health services to this. Now... after some travelling and after living in different areas of the world affected by different kinds of poverty, I learnt that the fight to eradicate it needs multiple-level strategies.
I will talk less now about the poverty that comes as a result of natural disasters and/or armed conflicts. I have not seen it. I have seen though, the constant poverty, where poverty is not always extreme, but ongoing.
In Mozambique, I was buying my vegetables from a local vendor, a smiling young lady that was performing her daily chores while carrying her youngest child in a capulana (”capulana” is a rectangular and colorful piece of fabric that Mozambican women use). Once, as I reached her wooden table, she was just arriving carrying a huge load of tomatoes on her head (her child still close to her body, in the capulana). I offered to help her place it on the table and could not stop wondering how on Earth did she manage to walk several kilometers with that weight on her head. After making the count, we went on talking and when I offered her the money she said I had already paid, showing me a 20 meticais note. Indeed, I had gone to the market with two notes of 20 and now I could only see one in my wallet. I took my bag and walked towards the house. By some reason I put my hand in my pocket and found the other 20 meticais. Within less then a second I rewinded and realized that while talking, I put the 20 meticais note in my pocket so I could use my both hands helping her to put all the things I bought in a bag. There were few moments in my life when I felt shittier. My lack of attention resulted in cheating her. I went back, face burning with shame for such a confusion and gave her the money. She was surprised, continuing to say I had paid her. So I explained that those 20 meticais she was showing me must have been from somewhere else, because I came to her courtyard market with 2 x 20 meticais and I still had them. I apologized. She started smiling, while her eyes filled with tears. She took the note and held it to her heart.
Not so long ago, here in Brazil, after a day of work, my apprentice told me she had a present for me, this after thanking me every single time I teach her something new (though it is my job to do so, I get paid for it and I have the satisfaction of seeing immediately the results of my work). She gave me a package, hand made, from wrapped notebook paper and asked me to carry it with care and open it only at home. I obeyed. Guess what? It was a red rose. Now, this time... it was my turn to cry. Let me explain: there are no roses in this town. There barely is water to grow food. Where could she find it, I could not figure out. And though it is not nice to think like that about a present, I started worrying she spent money from her humble salary to offer me a present I did nothing to deserve. Please, believe me, I am not suffering from fake modesty. I took my bicycle and pedaled fast to go to the house of my son's nanny. With a knot in my throat, I explained her that I got a present, with no apparent reason and from a girl that does not owe me anything. She smiled, with her always calm face and told me: "If you got it, it was because you attracted it into your life. Don't think about what the girl spent. Just be grateful." The following day, I went and gave a hug to my young apprentice. I could literally not verbalize the effect her present had on me.
One last story before reaching the point of this confession. My son's nanny is a lady in her 50's. She lives in a humble house and as a part time job she takes care of my little boy, educating him and quite often replacing a flawed formal education system. She has five children of her own and adopted three more. I will not go into details, I know that it happened three times to receive in her house children of other mothers, treated them as if they were hers and taught her children to adopt them as brother, because "where there is food for 5, there is food for 6" and 7, and 8, according to this fabulous lady. After some time, parents came back feeling more capable to raise their own kids and assuming that would happen she prepared the adopted sons for such situation. Two of the kids returned to their original family, one stayed.
Now, coming back to my friend's question, if I was still living the dream... I told her I did not. Now I am in doubt. I think that along the way, I allowed myself to be completely grabbed in a bureaucratic fight and partly lost my faith in me, lost confidence in the fact that I could generate a positive change in the lives of others. So, thinking about these episodes, I think I want to reformulate my answer. I am still living the dream when I am able to offer a woman the chance to gain an income from a decent form of work. And I am living the dream when I am able to offer knowledge to another person that is willing to absorb it and use it to her own benefit and the benefit of others.
And I very much believe in what Kofi Annan once said, that empowering women is the most effective development tool.
I learned that real heroes do not wear fancy costumes, they are disguised in nannies, girls eager to learn, women struggling to earn an income from dignifying work and... you name it.
