Dear partners in development work. According to a United Nations Statistics:
 Women perform 67% of the World’s working hours
 Women earn 10% of the World’s income
 Women are 2/3 of the World’s illiterates
 Women own less than 1% of the World’s property
The statistics are alarmists and reduces the women to sub-human beings. What can we do to reverse this situation? Should men reverse it for women? Not all. Women need to do something for themselves before it is too late, and that is by SELF EMPOWERMENT.

When we talk about ourselves as women, it is helpful to keep our rights in mind. When we know what our rights are, we can assert them. Everybody has basic human rights. This is so, for women and men, children and adults. But as in the case of other oppressive systems, women’s rights are often ignored because they are viewed as second class human beings.

Remember as children, we learnt how boys and girls were supposed to dress, how to sit and how to respond to others. We also began to learn what roles and responsibilities were expected from girls (child bearing, marriage, domestic activities) and boys (education and jobs) than the girls. In reality, it may be different. May be the girl never marries or marries an irresponsible man, then she cannot get a decent job and she is often left to look after the children. This calls for serious self-employment.

Violence against women is also another point we would like to comment on. Violence against women is a violation of human rights to every one. We cannot expect to have economic development, justice, peace and freedom when women are continuously oppressed and discriminated upon. We all know men who think they have the right to say anything about women loudly, in front of them. Sometimes a woman finds it flattering but usually it is abusive. What they are doing is not acceptable. It is harassment. This brings us to rape. Rape is an extreme form of violence against women. We of ELENA-NGO condemn it in strong terms.

The high rate of illiteracy amongst women has led to a lot of physical limitations to well being, limited opportunities for accessing information and developing awareness amongst women.

Elena, if given the opportunity and support, would identify and eradicate these ills to a limited extent.

Women’s illiteracy rates are in many cases, twice as high as men’s. This may seem obvious and yet in the past two decades, the value and importance of educating women has not been adequately recognized. As the cost of education has shifted from the state to the household, there is now even greater emphasis on the education of boys over girls if the fees are at all affordable.

We need to do something and very soon of course. If it is not done, then women will continue to work for longer hours, discriminated upon and the man’s centered approach of our society against women will continue unchecked.

Discrimination against women is similar to racism. These are both forms of oppression, which encourages under development, economic stagnation, illiteracy and dependence. We are convinced that poverty, illiteracy, dependence etc amongst women resulting from discrimination, is not a curse but that there are possibilities of eradicating these ills with creative solutions. Today about 71% of women in Cameroon have identified their problems and have resolved to get out of them.

ELENA NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION is out to help the women by empowering them. ELENA on the one hand cannot boast of having the ability to solving all the problems encountered by women, single handedly.

Women pursue a lot of businesses around their farming activities and are involved in more income generating activities than though not very sustaining.

Farming alone and petty trading cannot for themselves provide enough income to sustain household, nor can one single activity provide the income needed for basic health care needs of children, fees etc.

Diversification of activities is very much needed at this given period in time. Acquiring basic skills such as typing, handicraft, business management, computer literacy etc in addition to farming activities and petty trading, helps to raise additional incomes for households.

The risk of dependence is getting on the upward trend. Women work more hours than men, regardless of the season, both in farming and non-farming activities. Despite the high labour input by women, women are still experiencing time poverty and there is need to depart from farm and non-farm activities to learn skills that can yield better incomes.