Deep Roots

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Image: PAN AP

BEA is essential to the future prosperity of family farming – here, farmers receive training in rice breeding

their organizations. At the end of the training participants

are inspired and admit to gaining more confidence in fulfill-

ing their roles as women leaders. For example, a participant

wrote: “I’ll mobilize the community to raise their voices when-

ever there is a policy that is unequal or suppresses women,

farmers and the grass-roots community.”

Aside from training, PAN AP contributed to the forma-

tion of the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC) in

2008 to project the strength of rural women’s organizations

in the region. As the Secretariat of the ARWC, PAN AP

makes sure that the plans agreed upon by the coalition –

such as support to local women’s actions, online campaigns

in support of their land struggles, regional campaigns and

international policy lobbying at United Nations events –

are implemented. In 2012, PAN AP supported ARWC’s

‘Honouring 100 Rural Women’ project to acknowledge

rural women’s leadership and commitment in struggling

for justice and gender equality. This acknowledgement of

women who have worked hard for a long time for women’s

equality and social justice has inspired the women to

continue with their commitment and motivated others to

empower themselves. For instance, an Indian woman said,

“I feel glad and honoured to be part of these exceptional

women. Thank you for acknowledging my efforts that I am

trying to materialize on the ground.”

A recent innovative project called ‘Our Stories, One

Journey: Empowering Rural Women’ was initiated by PAN

AP, ARWC, and Oxfam’s East Asia GROW campaign as an

advocacy campaign for food security and sovereignty and for

a more equitable and sustainable system of growing food.

Our Stories, One Journey features a travelling journal with

entries written by rural women food producers from eight

countries – the Philippines, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Malaysia,

Indonesia, China, India and Sri Lanka. Through their stories,

rural women narrate the challenges of high food prices, low

income, losing their access to land due to land-grabbing,

climate change, and lack of control and access to seeds. The

journal is their story and their voices come through as an

indictment of the discrimination and exploitation that they

suffer as women, food producers, workers and as mothers,

daughters and wives.

Capacity building, organizing a region-wide formation of

rural women’s organizations, and innovative projects such as

the travelling journal have contributed to the intensification

of the campaigns of rural women with victories achieved in

several instances.

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