Noreen Johns has been helping women light some fires this spring.
They’re not burning stubble off farmland but hoping to improve the health of women in rural Saskatchewan.
In the first two of three planned workshops, Johns, of Zelma, Sask., has been the facilitator for women who came together to talk about health issues.
The women also came up with plans to get governments and health care and education bureaucrats to act on their concerns.
“We’re starting little fires in all these communities and we want the women to remain connected in each of the three sites and keep motivated and mobilized,” said Johns.
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That’s why the women plan to have a website by fall and want to have a meeting in March 2006 during Rural Women’s Week.
Using money from Status of Women Canada and with the assistance of the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence, Saskatchewan meetings were held in Young in March and Nipawin in April. Another is planned for Swift Current May 17-18. Women who want to attend that event can contact Liz Gordon at 306-674-2340.
Johns said the women at the Nipawin meeting came up with eight issues for action.
- A rural women’s power network that would encourage women to train in leadership, self-esteem and assertiveness so they can become involved in local, provincial and federal boards.
- Passages with Dignity is the name of a group that wants to research whether geriatric assessments could be done in small towns rather than sending the elderly to big-city hospitals for medical tests. Associated concerns were the lack of assisted living housing and palliative care in rural areas.
“There are so many horror stories of people split from their spouses or sent out of their community to a nursing home,” Johns said.
The group is also concerned that housekeeping has been removed as a service provided by home care, making it difficult for older people who can’t move well or have no strength to keep their homes tidy.
- Rural Schools Plus is one group’s concept of how to use rural schools that are facing closure as school division amalgamation continues.
The group hopes to turn the buildings into community centres, learning sites, child-care centres or senior housing or social centres.
- A fair living for farming plan discussed the need to consume food that is produced locally. Other suggestions included supporting co-ops or reviving the land bank idea of renting rather than buying acres to ensure farmers get more of the food dollar.
- Positive choices for youth was the name of a group’s plan to give young people a community centre where they can learn self-esteem and how to deal with domestic violence and date rape situations.
- Transportation is an issue for unhealthy rural seniors who must get a neighbour or family member to drive them to the doctor or to buy groceries.
- Another group discussed a funding pool for women to help them start small businesses or take entrepreneurial training.
- Self-caring women is the idea that women should take time to do things for themselves.
