Heather, DVM
Virtual Internship Country: Malawi
Canadian NGO: World University Service Canada
Local NGO: Coalition for the Empowerment of Women and Girls (CEWAG)
Although I believe the experiences that I have gained, and will continue to gain over the course of the next few months, by working remotely with an NGO in a developing country is dampened compared to what I would have experienced physically working in the field, I have regardless learned a significant amount about Malawian culture and the country-specific Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) targets that Malawi is continuing to work towards through my placement.
The SDG’s (specifically Goal 5: Gender Equality) have been explored extensively in my development classes for the Bachelors of International Development and Globalization program at the University of Ottawa. However, it was not until I began working with an NGO based in Lilongwe, Malawi called the Coalition for the Empowerment of Women and Girls (CEWAG) that I gained some first-hand experience and a new perspective on how deep rooted the numerous issues that cause gender inequality are in developing countries. For example, the World Bank (2021) reports that Malawian women and children are more likely than their male counterparts to suffer from poverty and its related impacts, such as violence, poor nutrition, and a lack of access to education and employment. Although these areas of concern have improved in recent decades, gender inequalities in Malawi persist.
Another international development theory that I have observed through my partnership with CEWAG was through their implementation of their project “Elimination of Practices that fuel Gender Based Violence (GBV) among Women and Girls in Mzimba in the Mzikubola area”, which followed the GAD approach. The GAD approach focuses on the socially constructed difference between men and women, the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations, and the creation and effects of class differences on development (Harcourt, 2016, p. 106). It was observed that Mzikubola was still registering high cases of GBV that were fueled by the high migration of males to South Africa in search of better employment opportunities, causing CEWAG to work to strengthen a coordinated GBV prevention and response initiative. Training was provided for women and girls through awareness campaigns on GBV and other methods, and was provided for men through a two-day training process to deconstruct their beliefs about women and girls’ socially constructed roles in society. Although CEWAG’s core values remain to primarily empower Malawian women and girls, they demonstrate how important it is to follow a GAD approach that considers all aspects of gender issues, and the class differences that are created by it. It is important to understand how social norms and power structures impact the lives and opportunities available to different groups of men and women to produce sustainable development projects.