How a strategy with good intentions ruined a community.

source:   PARTICIPATORY COMMUNICATION STRATEGY DESIGN A Handbook Second Edition Prepared by Paolo Mefalopulos and Chris Kamlongera for the SADC Centre of Communication for Development in collaboration with the Communication for Development Group Extension, Education and Communication Service Sustainable Development Department Table of Contents FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Rome, 2004

The main and only significant economic resource of a small rural village was the production of hand-made carpets by the men of the community. The women performed the domestic chores while the men earned income. As the distinctive features of these carpets were relatively famous in the area, the villagers could afford a decent living according to the rural standards of their country. Things started to change when an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) identified this village as a possible target for their poverty alleviation programme.

Since the programme of this international NGO was focussed on gender issues, income generation for women was readily accepted as a project idea after a brief assessment. After a feasibility study, the NGO identified mechanised carpet production by women as the income-generating project. The NGO quickly provided the materials for a small industrial production plant and trained the women of the village to produce the famous hand-made carpets.

What happened next was inevitable. Women and men in the village began to compete for the limited carpet market. Women, with their machinery and training, were able to produce a higher number of carpets and therefore won the carpet war.

The results of this well-intentioned strategy are briefly outlined below:

  • men stopped weaving carpets since they could not compete against the women and their new technology. The men began to spend most of their time and the money earned by their wives drinking;
  • women, because they are now working in the new carpet factory, could not attend to their domestic chores as they used to with the result that many aspects of the village life started to deteriorate (e.g. availability of drinking water, traditionally fetched by women began to decrease, cooking, minding of the babies, etc. began to suffer);
  • soon, as the quantity of manufactured carpets increased, the market became saturated with them, prices of carpets started to go down and as a consequence income began to decline rapidly in the village.
  • on a social level, family bonds became weaker as men got drunk

more often, felt useless and frustrated and frequently turned violent on their wives. Women, on the other hand, were working more and more to provide the basic subsistence income without being able to perform their usual daily tasks. Children were becoming increasingly neglected as carpet manufacturing took up most of the women’s time and men refused to take up roles traditionally in the domain of women.