Women's Collective of Masaya

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Mission of the Women’s Collective of Masaya: From a feminist point of view, our mission is to contribute to the organization of the women’s movement as an autonomous, democratic and plural movement, and to fortify the capacity of the movement to transform the unequal power relationship between men and women. This transformation includes that we the women take control over our bodies and self affirm our capacities and potentials; that we question all the power relations that exist in the structural level and in our interpersonal everyday life, which at the end will allow us to build a new ethic for human relations and empowerment in all aspects of our lives.

Contribution to our Mission and Programs to Create Change: Our activities are primarily focused on:

• Building a more just society
• Solidarity among women
• Defense of women’s rights as human rights
• Contributing to building more democratic relationships

Our political program with regard to organizing is aimed at strengthening the autonomous movement of women and the feminist movement, by empowering local women’s groups and by creating the space for coordination among women at the local, national and regional (Central American) level.

Development Objective: Strengthen the autonomous women’s movement, its positive and transforming capacity to change unequal power relationships between men and women. Contribute to individual and collective empowerment of women on the economic, political and social fronts by giving strength to the proposals the arise from the autonomous women’s groups; and promoting integral women’s health by incorporating mental health and the right to make decisions about our bodies.

General Objective: Contribute to the eradication of the subordination and oppression of women in private and public life through the process of consciousness-raising, organizing women around their interests, sensitivity trainings with government institutions and other actors in civil society.

The history of this activity is consistent with our mission, from a feminist perspective, to contribute to greater access for women to educational processes that allow them to have greater understanding, changes in their private, family and social lives, giving them the potential to integrate more actively in the women’s movement as well as the labor market.

The literacy program began in 1995 following a community survey carried out in three neighborhoods in Masaya, where we found that 54% of the women had never gone to school or had only received elementary education and subsequently became illiterate again. Classes are held in the homes of the literacy teachers, which often have substandard conditions.

The Program of Feminist Studies in the Women’s Collective began in 1995 as gender workshops with a strong organizing emphasis. The program began after surveys in the three Masaya neighborhoods revealed that 73% of the women had never participated in a process of reflection about their own lives, nor did they have access to basic information on sexual health and reproduction, nor had they ever spoken about sexual and reproductive rights. A participatory methodology with feminist content was used with the aim of teaching women to reflect on gender related problems in order to achieve transformations in their intimate, domestic and public worlds.

We began with the women’s particular personal experiences so that they would become aware that violence and the denial of their right to make decisions about means of contraception and to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases was a violation of their human rights. Our goal was to revise the health care situation for women to include a more integral approach to women who were seeking health services.

The Program to Assist Victims and Survivors of Violence, specifically in the area of individual, family, couple and group psychological counseling, has utilized gender sensitive therapy; information about laws and legal procedures; direct legal and emotional accompaniment in the entire process to women who are victims of domestic violence and decide to file a complaint with the authorities. We offer psychological preparation that strengthens women when they are filing a complaint against an aggressor. In the self help groups we were able to get women to support one another and to see the problem of violence as a collective problem and not just an individual one. Women also learned to put limits on their relationship with their partner, to develop a plan of self care and a network of support among themselves. One of the results that was achieved is that the women became educators and women’s rights promoters by referring or accompanying other women who were living with situations of violence.

As a result of the earthquakes that occurred on July 6 and 7, 2000 we began a series of actions to mitigate the impact on a material as well as an emotional level. Among these activities are the workshops on emotional recovery with all the groups that form the Collective. The results of these workshops indicate that the earthquakes provoked a chain reaction of crisis involving the experiences of the women due to their gender roles, the violence that they had experienced throughout much of their lives. Therefore we felt that emotional recovery became a core part of our mission.

All of these activities were integrated into our organizational action plan that was developed by consensus among the different organizations in whom the Collective participates including the different national organizing initiatives such as the Women’s Literacy Network, Network of Women Against Violence, Network of Documentation Centers and the National Feminist Committee. This took place at a time when the women’s movement became aware of the need to consolidate a movement with a public presence, with a capacity to develop proposals and defend our gains throughout these years.

In general terms, the methodology used in all these programs combines theoretical and practical aspects designed to increase the political action of the women’s movement in Nicaragua. This means that we must design specific methodologies that ensure that theoretical studies are appropriate for the level of the women with whom we work, such as reflection on life experiences and experiences of political participation of the women.

Our strategy also includes advocacy with government institutions such as the Ministries of Education, Health, Police, etc. as well as with non-governmental organizations to achieve changes in attitudes and policies on women’s issues.

Another important aspect of our work is the development of critical consciousness, personal growth and alternative therapies with the members of the Collective, which all help to empower our members. From our vision, we promote the self-organization of women from a broad, democratic and autonomous concept. We begin with an initial phase of reflection and analysis of the conditions which subordinate women and the situation we experience as women in this society. We raise the consciousness of women through workshops on gender and organizing, principally with autonomous groups of women in the rural areas but also in the urban areas.

Leadership Development and Community Organizing: Given the fact that the workshops and literacy trainings are not sufficient in and of themselves to achieve political change and feminist leadership development in the communities, we also promote, accompany and support the formation of autonomous women’s groups in the department of Masaya including: Women’s Collective in Santa Teresa, Women’s Group in the June 5th Community, Women’s Collective in Pilas Orientales, Women of Quebrada Honda, Women of El Comejon, and the Group of Disabled Women. We also work with women’s groups in other geographic areas outside of Masaya such as: Women’s Center of Bocana and Paiwas in Matagalpa and the Birthing Center in New Guinea, RAAS.

On the other hand, we are also active in promoting active political participation of the women in Commissions and Coordinating bodies that have been established to bring together government agencies and members of civil society. We strive to develop women into agents of change in their homes as well as in their communities so that they are truly empowered and fight for political space in their communities or wherever they may be.

We also strive to increase the organizational capacity of the local women’s groups so that they will have a greater self-sufficiency and the capability of developing their own projects. We conduct capacity building workshops to develop the leaders in the groups. As a result of these trainings women and their organizations are able to participate more fully in decision making at the community level. With the agricultural recovery project, which was a joint project between the men and women of the communities (together with the National Union of Agricultural Producers), the women leaders were the ones who made sure the project was completed in full compliance with all agreements that had been made with all the local participants.