Mildred Crawford returned as JNRWP president

AFTER serving five years as president of the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers (JNRWP), Mildred Crawford is looking forward to yet another term in office, having retained her post following the organisation’s annual general meeting last Thursday at the Denbigh 4-H Club in Clarendon.

“I have done a lot of work in terms of taking the network from dust to where it is now. We are now recognised by the United Nations and I have been advocating at the international level for changes both nationally and internationally,” she said.

The JNRWP is a non-government organisation that was launched in 2009 with the aim of empowering and motivating rural women to improve their quality of life and the social and economic situations that exist in their communities. The development of the organisation has been guided by the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture, as well as other organisations that deal with the economic and social development of women.

“It gives us an opportunity as a national machinery to pick up the issues much more quickly and put them together in terms of advocating for the rights of women. It also helps us to redistribute any benefits in a formal way, because we have established a database and we can go on and find out who is doing what. The more organised we are, the better it is to get funding,” Crawford explained.

The JNRWP president explained that a diagnostic review was done when she first came into office in 2007, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the various groups. The organisation currently has a membership of approximately 250 rural women, most of whom are involved in agro-processing, direct farming and exports. The JNRWP also constitutes 13 community-based organisations, seven of which are organised and fully registered as either co-operative or benevolent societies.

“We actually look at the skill sets that they have. We try to assist them to get training and get strengthening. We also ensure that in terms of the business that they are in, they are able to do proper record keeping. We look at the marketing of whatever they do. That is from the entrepreneurial side. On the other side, we do have a gender component, which focuses on social issues of health education, the at-risk boys and girls, and how the parenting aspect comes in,” Crawford explained.

She said that there are a number of challenges facing rural women. One of the main ones, she noted, was the difficulty in accessing credit. Crawford was pleased, however, that some of the challenges that came up over the past five years have now been resolved. One of those issues was the need for a designated meeting place. The government has since given them their own space at 4 Ellesmere Road in Kingston. At this new location, they are able to hold training sessions and teach women how to improve the standard of their products and how to market themselves.

Crawford said she doesn’t intend to spend another five years in office. She just wants enough time to allow for the training of someone else to take over the office, so that the next president can continue on some of the existing successes of the JNRWP. She believes it’s important that the organisation continues to lobby for these women and the communities they represent, given the role these women play in the development of society.

“Everybody’s contribution counts. Rural women have been doing a lot and can do more,” she said.