Rural Saskatchewan women interested in changing their lifestyles can offer suggestions at meetings being organized by a group focused on rural women’s issues.
Four meetings are planned for 2006 by the Rural Women’s Issues Committee of Saskatchewan, or RWICS, said committee member Lil Sabiston, a farmer from Kelliher, Sask.
The meetings follow up on sessions held in 2005 in Young, Nipawin and Swift Current, Sask., that explored health issues for rural women as part of the initial research for a federally funded national report.
Sabiston said the results of the first round of meetings raised concerns such as rural isolation, lack of access to various services, poor farm income and the lack of recognition of rural women’s volunteer and paid work.
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“These issues are important to rural people since it affects the whole farm family. There are the old motherhood issues of education and medical care access. Senior women mention loneliness; there’s nothing there for them.”
Sabiston said RWICS anticipates that the women at the meetings will take a positive approach and act by chipping away at the issues important to them.
For some issues Sabiston said she can assist by getting research projects because of her role as chair of the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence.
But, she said, women must help by talking to politicians and other policy makers.
“A lot of research projects sit on the shelf without grassroots action to keep them going.”
RWICS is not a permanent group. It survives on grants. Sabiston hopes one outcome of the 2006 meetings is to establish funding for a rural women’s group to become permanent. She said it costs money to drive to meetings and to run a formal office. Without money for an operating budget, it is difficult to lobby, she said.
At one time Sabiston chaired the Saskatchewan Women’s Agricultural Network, a group that folded five years ago when starved of operating dollars.
She said part of the problem is that men still tend to dominate government elected and appointed positions.
“Men tend to forget about families. They are good at economics.”
The first meeting will be in Carlyle, Sask., April 7-8. The committee intends to hold one in Prince Albert in June, another in North Battleford in October and a provincial forum in November.
For more information, contact Sabiston at 306-675-4808 e-mail lil.dwight@sasktel.net or other committee members Gloria Borg 306-862-2676, gborg@sasktel.net; Diane Martz 306-682-7870, martzd@duke.usask.ca; Noreen Johns 306-257-3911, n.johns@sasktel.net; or Joanne Havelock 306-585-5727, pwhce@uregina.ca.
