This program aims at empowering women in Angdong Village. Through communicating with the outside world and engaging in public services, it enhances the organization skills, self-confidence and ability of them. It starts off with the topic of “family health knowledge”. By organizing various cultural activities, it attracts and gathers female villagers. They are further divided into 3 public service teams to serve empty nesters, left-behind children and public health improvement respectively. At the same time, it sets up a public service fund for the participant villages, ensuring the sustainability of the program.
Why this program?
Based on our previous works in Angdong, we learnt that:
1. The population of female villagers is comparatively high. Many are interested in internal cultural activities and wish to contribute and help developing the village. They also have high eagerness to engage in learning. Although they are not usually in the center of attention, some organize their own interest groups and deploy their talent in different activities, such as the Angdong Long March Band, the Female Dancing Team. In the past, the women received limited training and community supports, leading to a lack of self-confidence and skills. They had hence low influence; meanwhile they also had low speaking rights. Even though they care for public affair in the village, limited expression channels also restricted their ability to contribute to the village. By the means of trainings, talks, exchange programs and social service, this program hopes to gather female villagers and develop personal ability and widen their horizons. They therefore can apply their influence in family as well as the community, rebuilding their longing for life and future. It also works as a motivation and a platform for them in social engagement which further develop their ability and self-confidence. Female can then show the strengths, at the same time take part in building a sustainable rural community.
2. The “left-behind” problem is critical in this village. There are a lot of left-behind elderlies, left-behind children and left-behind women and they are concentrated to a certain area. Nevertheless, they have limited connections with each other. There are thus elderlies and children without sufficient care; meanwhile women tend to play Mahjong to kill time. This program therefore hopes to collect the power of the female villagers. By enhancing the ability of these villagers and brining the others together, they can take care of elderlies and children in the village. Furthermore, they can also engage in the public affair and management of the village, contributing to developing the new-era rural community with the help of village committee.
3. This village suffers from serious public health problems. Villagers have inadequate knowledge regarding health management. For example, villagers, in general, do not have good understanding about the importance of proper waste disposal. They litter everywhere, resulting in a large amount of public waste next to the residence, which greatly deteriorates the living environment of nearby residents. This might also lead to secondary pollution by cats and dogs as they would forage for food in the waste and bring them to other places. Besides, most villagers handle waste by burning it down, including plastic bottles, which are supposed to be incombustible. The fume smells terrible and is toxic. It indeed jeopardizes the life of villagers and the natural environment.
Furthermore, they also have low awareness of health, for example, their diets are of high sodium and oil and they do not have a healthy life-style. If this problem continues, it would directly affect the physical and mental well-being of the villagers, especially for children and teens. We therefore, through this program, hope to take advantage of the influence of women at homes and in the community. By understanding the concept of health, they would be able to bring positive impacts to their family members, which would eventually improve their living environment and health concept of the villagers.