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The Story of Tseganesh Tulicha
My name is Tseganesh Tulicha. I come from a remote, rural part of the Southern Region [of Ethiopia]. I worked for my people as a [Learning Our Way Out (LOWO)] community conversation facilitator on family planning together with IIRR and the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE). At first, my people didn’t like the very idea of discussing family planning issues. This is because they believed that children are like money kept in the bank—the more children you have, the more you benefit from them. Others quoted the Bible as saying “Children are the gifts of God, multiply and fill the earth, etc.”
Things changed a lot after IIRR gave us training on community conversation techniques and we began to educate our community using the technique we learned.
Towards the end of the [LOWO] project, IIRR gave all the ten community facilitators 500 birr [a little over US$50] each as an incentive for our services, in addition to the self-confidence we gained. We didn’t share or spend the money. Rather, following IIRR’s advice, we organized ourselves into a small savings and credit association, opened a bank account and deposited the money. Members borrowed money from the cooperative and made small businesses. Men bought cattle and fattened them before they sold them for higher prices. Most women bought cows and benefited from the sale of milk and butter. To date, each member has borrowed twice and is preparing to borrow for the third time. I have observed in this process that women are good savers and they pay off their debts in time. Currently, our cooperative has attracted a membership of 106, out of which 60 are women. Our capital has grown to 48,000 birr [over US$5,000].
I come from a society that considers women as commodities. They think women are created mainly to give birth. Women are mistreated by their own society. In fact, I hated myself for being created a female so much so that I wished I were my father’s male horse than a female human, for I very much envied the horse the attention it enjoyed for being male. Therefore, at one time, I used to pray to the omnipotent God before I went to bed saying: “God please, change my sex.” But nothing changed…
Before I became a facilitator, I was forced to stop going to school at Grade 5 because I was abducted by a man who later became my husband, and now the father of my five children. However, I managed to resume my education after the LOWO project ended. I am now in grade 12 and will finish my high school this year.
The LOWO project has indeed changed my life and my way of thinking. Now, I am a proud woman. I am proud to see women enjoying equal rights with their male counterparts. I am also happy to be able to change the attitude of my community towards family planning and for setting a good example.
Speech translated from Amharic by IIRR staff (2007).
For more information on IIRR’s Programs in Reproductive Health please see http://www.iirr.org/index.php/programs/reproductive.
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