Farm women are too busy dealing with everyday life to work on the larger issues that concern them.
“I know that for me, as well as other farm women, things came to a grinding halt because of spring seeding,” said Noreen Johns, the facilitator for three workshops held in Saskatchewan this spring.
“Then a lot of us are on (Saskatchewan centennial) homecoming committees.”
The workshops in Young, Nipawin and Swift Current were meant to bring together women in rural Saskatchewan to determine what actions are needed to improve their well-being and that of their families and communities.
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The workshops were sponsored by the Rural Women’s Issues Committee of Saskatchewan, the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence and Status of Women Canada.
The women who attended the workshops committed themselves to take action over the next few months, whether it be gathering information or holding meetings to recruit other women to work on their causes.
Johns said her role is to remind women of their promises and to help connect all the action groups so they know they are not alone. That will be done through a combination of e-mail, regular mail and a website.
“It’s more a matter of keeping the enthusiasm up and helping the action groups if there’s a stumbling block.”
Issues discussed in Swift Current May 17-18 were similar to topics raised at the previous two sessions.
Women wanted to talk about how they achieve power positions in government. Most women were unaware that the provincial government has forms they can fill out about their areas of interest and expertise in volunteering for public boards.
“In rural Saskatchewan it used to go through the MLAs’ offices, but we don’t have any government members,” Johns said while explaining why so few rural women have a political voice.
Women at the meeting also pointed out that there is no longer a women’s secretariat in the provincial government. The branch was dismantled and women’s representatives are now scattered through various departments, with staff expected to add gender duties to their other work. It hasn’t been effective, women said.
Associated with the silencing of their voices was a need to recognize and compensate women for their contributions, such as a Canada Pension Plan for homemakers and stay-at-home mothers. Only paid employment now qualifies a person for CPP.
The Swift Current group took a unique position from the other two groups by emphasizing the need for links between seniors and students.
It suggested highlighting the achievements of senior women during the annual rural women’s week in March or holding an after-school program to connect the two age groups. One idea was to hold a grandparents-grandchildren retreat.
One reason for teaching lessons from the past to young people is to make them see that they can return to rural communities to work.
“Youth need to volunteer more in their communities to build loyalty … whether it is helping in the rink or being a junior member on the co-op board,” Johns said. The women also would like to see students receive a credit in school for this volunteer work.
Following up on the youth theme, another group would like to promote peer counselling and use the best models of prevention programs in school to deal with smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, dating and self-esteem.
The problems of elder care were raised. With rural home care duties restricted, seniors who need help with housekeeping, shopping or getting to medical appointments rely on volunteer caregivers in the community.
The group also bemoaned the problem of low farm incomes and suggested a campaign to encourage people to shop locally and buy Canadian produce. Johns said this latter issue is really the crunch issue in all the meetings.
“It’s hard for women to lobby for fairness if the farm isn’t paying for even one man to survive.”
