Oxfam America Blog

Jim French is a regional advocacy lead and an agricultural specialist for Oxfam America. He is also a fifth-generation farmer and rancher in south-central Kansas.

Last week, our friend Terry Steinhour died in a tractor accident while moving hay on his farm. Along with my colleagues Rasa Dawson and Katie Danko, I wanted to take a moment to remember Terry, a kind and gentle soul and a true advocate for Oxfam.

Oxfam America knew about Terry Steinhour before Terry knew much about Oxfam. In 2005, Oxfam field organizers were looking for American farmers that could become spokespeople in our campaign to reform US commodity subsidies. We searched in cotton and soybean fields, pastures, dairy barns, and sheep pens across the nation.

Terry Steinhour during his visit to Africa. Photo: Rasa Dawson / Oxfam America

Following a lead, Oxfam organizer Katie Danko reached out to a corn, soybean, and beef farmer outside of Springfield, Illinois. After a very short introduction during corn harvest, Terry had Katie behind the wheel of his combine.

“I had no idea what I was doing, and before I knew it too much corn went into the machine and stopped it cold. I thought it was broken,” recalls Katie.

But Terry gently handled the situation, cleaned out the stalks that plugged the header, and continued to build a wonderful relationship with Katie and the whole Oxfam team. In the next three years, Terry would write opinion pieces for area newspapers, meet with legislators, and take calls from radio interviewers from around the world.

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Leaders of a Saving for Change group in Zantiebougou-Fala, Mali, keep track of deposits at a group meeting. Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/Oxfam America

Interesting news: we just heard that our Saving for Change program has broken the 250,000 participant barrier. According to the message we just got from our VP John Ambler, Saving for Change now has “more than 250,000 members, and operates in more than 6,000 villages on three continents.” This makes Saving for Change one of Oxfam America’s largest non-humanitarian programs.

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We’ve been looking at the photos we got from Senegal-based photographer Rebecca Blackwell from a trip in March in Mali to visit several Saving for Change groups in the southern part of the country near Bougouni. I want to share a few of Rebecca’s portraits and some quotes from the women we met, just because I have been thinking about them lately. I detected a common theme in each village and group: dignity. The women described how saving and borrowing money from their group helped them manage their affairs independently. You can see pride in their faces, and hear it in their words.

Soumba Doumbia. Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/Oxfam America

Soumba Doumbia, mid 30s, three children, sells cloth and clothing to earn extra money.

“Before we established our group, we had no hope. If we had problems and needed money, we had to go to a nearby town and borrow it. We would ask people here for help, but they did not always say yes. Now we can find money for our problems from the group.”

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Moh Mariko, born in the year when it rained a lot (1945). Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/Oxfam America

Moh Mariko was not sure what year she was born, since it isn’t important and no one pays attention to such things in her village in southern Mali. “I was born in the year when there was a lot of rain,” she says. (Her government ID said it was 1945.)

Rain, that’s the important thing in the Sahel. When there is none, people suffer terribly. They can’t grow crops to feed themselves, and they can’t grow cotton to sell for cash, so they can’t support their families with enough food, medicine, and clothes and books and school fees for their children.
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Madame Sidibe Traore. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

The best part of visiting small villages in Mali is both the coming and the going.

On arrival, you have to first visit the chief, who usually delivers a formal series of welcoming comments in Bambara, punctuated by the visitors responding at the end of each statement. Someone then usually explains why you are there, and the chief gives you permission to work in the village. Read the rest of this entry »

Fanta Niambaly, president of the Saving for Change group in Banakoro, in southern Mali. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America.

I just spent two days visiting Saving for Change groups in southern Mali. Saving for Change teaches women to save money and start small business ventures.

The women always have a look in their eyes that conveys real dignity and just a bit of fire as they describe their businesses, and how the money they earn is helping their families. Most can say their children have decent clothes and are in school, the family is eating better, and they are saving money.

Fanta Niambaly, 52, is president of one Saving for Change group in the village of Banakoro. She says the 29 women in her group are changing the way they see themselves and their place in the community. “We are proud of our businesses, and we are learning to become entrepreneurs,” she says, squinting in the sun.

In other villages women say they are now included in village councils and help make decisions on important matters like the maintenance of wells and new pumps. But are women sharing any decision-making power beyond their traditional roles of carrying water and caring for children? Do their husbands respect their opinions in family and village matters? Can they own property, be the mayor, or carry out other official duties? Read the rest of this entry »

Minata Konaré is proud of what she and others have done in her Saving for Change group in Mali. “This is our own money,” she says. Brett Eloff/Oxfam America photo

With the abrupt economic downturn I have to wonder what will happen to US foreign aid budgets when the new president assumes office. Barack Obama originally said he will double foreign aid to $50 billion by the fourth year of his administration, if he can get elected. Earlier this month he said he will probably have to re-evaluate this plan, but that he does not intend to cut the foreign aid budget. It seems certain: Whoever becomes the next president may have to devote more treasure to bailing out banks and other unforeseen expenses.

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