Saara KamalKarongi District, Western Province
Hello all!Before you read what I have to say about Gender and Development I thought Iwould quickly introduce myself. My name is Saara Kamal. I am a teacher at TTCRubengera in Karongi District in the Western Province. I teach fantastic uppersecondary students. Unlike other Education Volunteers, I don’t teach English. Iteach something called CPPE (Creative Performance and Physical Education). Ihave about 9 months left in my service and here are some ponderings for you toperuse…
What is itSimone de Beauvoir says, ‘One is not born, but becomes a woman.” That’s greatfor existential philosophers. But, I feel as if her perspective like so manyothers is skewed to the paradigm of what it means to be a “Western woman.”After being in Rwanda for about a year and a half, the term woman has a verydifferent meaning, as a woman living here in Rwanda. Here, the inequalitybetween the expected rights of women as Simone would believe, are so far fromthe reality. In Rwanda, it the responsibility of women to bear and raisechildren similar to the rest of the world. However, the difference that I seeevery day in Rwanda in terms of what it means to be a woman is the level of sacrificethat is expected.
Women inRwanda aren’t expected to go to school and let alone succeed like their malecolleagues. Women aren’t expected to become self-sufficient entrepreneurs oftheir own businesses without judgment from their fellow community members. Women aren’t expected to refuse the sexualadvances of a man without the assumption of some kind of consequence; be it societalor physical. These lowered expectations of women have now created such deeptraces of a lowered sense of self-worth that the sacrifices of education and independencearen’t seen as a great loss, but as the norm. Very generally, being a woman inRwanda includes maybe finishing a level of education (primary, secondary oruniversity) and very soon afterward getting married. The scope of vision forwomen does not extend very far past their cultural expectations.
The reasonwhy I became interested in GAD (Gender and Development) is based on thisdefinition of what it means to be a woman in Rwanda. My goal for the foreseeablefuture is use the platform of GAD to expand and give more depth to the meaningof “woman” in Rwanda. I feel that the presence of GAD through Peace Corps Volunteersin our communities has the capacity to effect change in how women perceivethemselves. The best way to way to learn something is to practice imitation. Ifwe want women of Rwanda to be strong, we as fellow community members must setthe precedent for how to conduct ourselves in a way that is an encouragementfor other women to do as well. In addition to imitation and setting an examplethere must also be open dialogue about questions like, “What is gender?”, “Whatis development?” and “What does Gender Development look like in this context? In Rwanda?” Rightnow, I don’t have perfect answers to these questions. But hopefully soon, myselfand other supporters of GAD will be on the right course to have tangiblesolutions the problem of how to promote gender development.
I am veryexcited by the things that have already been done in relation to Gender inDevelopment in Rwanda (GLOW and BE camps in particular!) in the past threeyears and am even more excited about can happen in the future. Let’s be thechange!
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