Communities and development

WEEK THREE ASSIGNMENT
There are quite a number of challenges and barriers to creating change in my community.
• The first being high levels of illiteracy among women, it is usually difficult to foster change when dealing with people with little or no education as their level of understanding is very low.
• Tradition norms, where a woman is regarded as secondary in decision making and should only be confined to the affairs of the kitchen and as such women shun activities that are aimed at improving their lives as they are scared of getting divorced by their husbands.
• Lack of access to resources is rampant in my community which makes it almost impossible for one to improve their livelihood, of course this is due to lack of collateral, as a requirement to get financial assistance from the available financial institutions.
Some of the present solutions in overcoming these challenges are:
• Promoting of girl child education at community level and also introduction of adult literacy to women, this will help in fostering the much needed literacy.
• In as much as we appreciate and treasure our traditions, today’s world needs only positive norms and practices ,sensitization is therefore required among women and men, by so doing men will appreciate and embrace the need for women to be participating in developmental activities in their communities.
• In the long run women will be able to accumulate and acquire some properties that they could then use as collateral to get financial assistance from available micro lenders to further grow their small enterprises.
The use of Pulsewire and other online communities will definitely help in overcoming some of the challenges in my community. The resource exchange is a useful tool to connect to pulsewire members who could be in a position to finding solutions to the highlighted challenges.
I am going to introduce a lot of women to become members of pulsewire community, this will help them get trainings and get the much needed literacy through getting connected to members or sites that offer free trainings or other forms of assistance. They could also make contributions according to what they have be it advice, market connections and many more.
By sharing and learning other people’s traditions and norms using the platform, it will be easy for one to pick and put into practice that which is only positive to one’s life but able to fit into their community.
Women will get exposure through interacting with members of the platform, which in the long run will help improve and consolidate their voice and participate effectively to the betterment of their community.