This microproject complements PSYDEH's ongoing work by channeling donor investment into a seed-money fund. This fund incentivizes indigenous women and their nascent network of NGOs to produce four unprecedented, pilot projects to solve local problems across cultural and geographic boundaries in quarters 2 and 3, 2018. Project success is then strategically celebrated in quarter 4 with men and public officials as further evidence on why women are key to driving bottom-up, sustainable progress.
We confront a major Mexican challenge - rural, indigenous women are not supported as public problem-solvers. They do not see the value of cross-cultural collaboration. Despite being a majority, women participate only nominally in civic society while gender inequality and familial and political violence, abandonment via migration and discrimination predominate. For example, few women lead government. And 95% report facing discrimination and violence in homes, schools, and political processes.
With this project, we produce three outcomes. In the short term, (1) network leaders use 2017-2018 action learning to produce seed-fund supported pilot projects consistent with their unprecedented regional development agenda (Agenda). In the medium term, (2) network leaders are seen as impact-making actors whose voice matters in their Region and country. And (3) 2018 pilot-project success is leveraged by the women and PSYDEH into additional funding for future social action in 2018 and 2019.
Women drive sustained progress in communities when armed with decision-making clarity, authority and economic resources. For 500 native women, this project breaks the isolation in which they live by organizing around innate abilities and shared interests and power. Their network of 6 organizations creates solutions to problems and supports female autonomy and regional alliances. With success, we integrate men, poverty decreases and migration slows. We then scale our model across the Americas
