Rural Entrepreneurship - International Day of Rural Women

“As early adopters of new agricultural techniques, first responders in crises and entrepreneurs of green energy, rural women are a powerful force that can drive global progress” - UN Secretary-General António Guterres

Google ‘rural women’ or ‘women in rural development’ and you will be deluged with facts, statistics and reports emphasising the crucial role women in rural areas play in terms of development and progress. Accurate data is crucial in judging what progress the world but the sheer volume of information and numbers can make it difficult to glean any real meaning as to who is gaining what, from how and where?

A prime example is the UN page dedicated to International Rural Women’s Day - 

“…smallholder agriculture produces nearly 80 per cent of food in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and supports the livelihoods of some 2.5 billion people.”... “globally, one in three employed women works in agriculture”...”eighty percent of households without piped water rely on women and girls for water collection”. That’s A LOT of women doing a lot of work in this generic definition of agriculture. According to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres "As early adopters of new agricultural techniques, first responders in crises and entrepreneurs of green energy, rural women are a powerful force that can drive global progress."

It’s stirring stuff but leaves us (or at least me) thinking at a slightly abstract, planetary level.

I agree that many of the challenges now facing us must be dealt with through international coalitions but we also need to remember that when we talk about ‘rural women’, we’re talking about individuals who all have their own lives, highs, lows, experiences and families. They are not homogenous. 

With that in mind I wanted to personalise International Rural Women’s Day by bringing you the story of one of the best ‘rural women’ I know. I have written spoken about Proscovia’s work at Self Help Initiative for Development (SHIFOD), but there is so much more to her story, upbringing and life experiences.

Prossy is an almost perfect example of who Antonio Guterres has in mind when he talks about a “powerful force”. Taking each of his examples in turn -

“First responders in crises” - as soon as the Ugandan government began its COVID lockdown,  Prossy sourced and distributed basic food supplies, masks and antibacterial hand gel to her community.

"Early adopters of new agricultural techniques” - through SHIFOD, she has helped to train farmers in conservation farming and integrating tree planting into local agricultural practices.

“Entrepreneurs of green energy” - the SHIFOD ECOstore aims to supply local rural communities with renewable energy and clean cookware, whilst educating families on why adopting this technology is so important both for their own health and the health of the planet. 

Prossy’s experiences growing up deeply affected her world view and she has made it her mission in life to support the communities around her.

As a child living with her aunt, Prossy walked 5km each way to get to school, sometimes 6km to get to the maize factory, attended to the crops and made waragi to sell for extra income (pounding and fermenting cassava, frying and cooling it, adding spouted, ground millet and then leaving it for 5 days.) After Prossy’s aunt’s companion was killed during the Ugandan civil war, Prossy had to leave school and give up her chance of continued education - it was a bitter pill to swallow but Prossy is nothing if not optimistic. She met Kakumba Desire and together they had 5 children (and now 2 grandchildren). Prossy worked constantly to ensure her children got the best education she could afford and eventually caught the attention of one of the local directors of Caritas - inviting her to volunteer to train women in entrepreneurial skills and home hygiene practices. Within a year she was a full time member of staff working across rural communities in the Kiyinda Miyana Diocese and eventually spending 15 years working for Caritas. At the same time she studied part time for a Diploma course in Gender and Development, a degree in Democracy and Development studies and most recently a Master’s in Development Studies. In 2018 Prossy made the difficult decision to leave the charity to care for her ailing mother.

Until COVID struck, Prossy had spent her time since leaving Caritas focusing on developing her various SHIFOD initiatives, giving serious thought to how to develop the ECOstore from traditional shop stall into a ‘eco hub’ - providing not just domestic clean electricity and cookware, but educational programmes and outreach.

Like everyone else, life is somewhat on hold for Prossy as we make our way through COVID but she continues to work in her communities - anything from explaining government regulations to helping neighbours find chicken feed when supplies run short. The eco hub remains the main focus of my work with Prossy and something we hope to get off the ground as soon as life returns to something resembling normal.

Prossy is a shining example of Antonio Guterres’ generic “rural woman”  and a huge personal inspiration for me.

If you would like to know anything more about the amazing Prossy and her work, please get in touch.

Click here for the UN’s official page dedicated to International Rural Women’s Day https://www.un.org/en/observances/rural-women-day

For more on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals click on https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

Information on the work Caritas International carries out in Uganda can be found at https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/africa/uganda/

Prossy and I work together thanks to ENVenture Enterprises - a seed incubator empowering the last mile to launch sustainable clean energy enterprises https://www.enventureenterprises.org/