From Women’s Advancement to Gender Justice

In the past 50 years, no other social movement has changed the cohabitation of people more significantly than the women’s movement. "Bread for the world" had started to direct its work explicitly at women only since the mid 1980ies with programmes for women’s advancement. As from 1995, the keyword "Gender Mainstreaming" stands for the promotion of an equal relationship between men and women. The vision paper "Justice for the poor" (2000) has mainstreamed gender equality as a multi-sectoral task. "Bread for the World" has developed itself into a pioneer of development cooperation in terms of gender equality even after a late start. This competence is rooted in an intensive dialogue between staff members of the organisation and their colleagues in progressive partner organisations in the South.

Women as a driving force for development
Self-help groups are a very important tool for women’s advancement. Besides joint savings and awarding small loans, women are also very committed to improving local educational and health-care institutions in many places. The case studies within the impact documentation show that the income generated by women particularly benefits families. They also document that women who participate in self-help groups more often send their children to school. Economic gains, self-confidence and social status growth of women are mutually dependent. Together they establish a foundation for increased gender equality.

Gender roles are slowly changing
The improvement of women’s role doesn’t pass by without set-backs. In the case studies of the impact documentation undesired side effects were also monitored. A typical example for this is when women generate an own income or are committed in political activities but still have to accomplish all family tasks by themselves. This often leads to an overload. Even when women report domestic violence, there are cases in which husbands only change the violence practised to less obvious actions. These experiences show "Bread for the World" and its partner organisations that gender equality can only be achieved when men also take an active role in the programmes. New ways for the distribution of tasks within family and society are discussed during trainings especially for men – a challenge not only for developing countries, but also a highly topical issue in Germany.