Ethiopia video: ?Is there more happiness than this??

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Brenda Asiko presents a video about Kibnesh and her family, whose lives have been greatly improved following an Oxfam project to promote gender equality at home and give women control over their work and income. For Kibnesh, life as a woman in rural Ethiopia used to have clear boundaries: "Our ancestors considered women to be weak and unable to do certain work alongside men … women were supposed to stay at home and prepare food for their husbands." While Kibnesh worked in the house, her husband had exclusive control over the family farm and income. They faced serious food shortages. Oxfam ? working with its local partner KMG ? initiated an "Asset-Based Community Development" (ABCD) project to promote gender equality at home and give women control over their work and income. Kibnesh now toils alongside her husband in the farm. "Now we are both helping each other, in the house and on the farm," says Kibnesh. "He helps me more than I help him! In the past I was under my husband and I depended on him. But now we make decisions together, share things … it's a big sign of respect." Sharing work and income more fairly has helped improve the family's situation. "If I had not helped him we would not have had enough food to eat." More about ABCD Instead of focusing on a community's weaknesses, Oxfam, in close collaboration with the Coady International Institute and three local Ethiopian NGOs, is helping communities identify and build on their assets and capacities - what they know, what they do, the resources they can tap. The process starts with a detailed mapping of the community and its environment engaging the whole community in drawing up an inventory of its assets. They list everything from their labour to the stones that line the seasonal streambed, their livestock, their water source, even the grandmother who teaches young girls to sew. They also look to see how assets are lost to the community - where their limited money goes, whether they are losing skilled workers, whether they could increase the return on their labour if they processed the things they produce. By recognising these assets and then mobilizing at the community level to build on them, a process of change is set in motion. Where we work: Ethiopia More Oxfam videos More from the Oxfam Press Office at http://www.oxfam.org.uk/news