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Sri
Lankan women have had to carry a heavy burden
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In
remote rural areas in Sri Lanka, local means of transporting produce to the
market, carrying water from sources far from home and taking children to school
are crude, unsafe and unreliable. They are particularly hard on the women who
share this load.
Technologies
in some areas are slowly becoming appropriate. But in rural transport, the poor
continue to be the beasts of burden, and women, the traditional fetchers and
carriers.
There
are several reasons for this. Lack of purchasing power, high costs, designs of
technologies that limit their access, and less options to reduce the daily
workload. This means heavy demands on their time, restricting their ability to
be more productive and in the long run, keeping them poor and isolated.
Sri
Lankan Mechanic Receives International Accreditation
Regarding
this situation, Intermediate Means of Transport (IMTs), based on research
conducted by the Intermediate Development Group (ITDG) in Sri Lanka and the
Universities of Ruhuna and Colombo with the Ministry of Transport, were
introduced to poor rural areas, beginning with a village in the south of the
country.
IMTs
fall between the two extremes of walking with a head-load or a load on the back
or over the shoulders, and the modern four-wheeled motorized vehicles such as
cars, buses, vans or trucks. IMTs therefore can range from pack animals and
animal-drawn carts, to non-motorized vehicles such as bicycles, wheelbarrows and
hand carts to the smaller, cheaper motorized vehicles such as motorized cycles
or the Indian “ bajaj” or the Sri Lankan “ three-wheeler”.
Premadasa,
a young mechanic in Suriyawewa, a village in the south, modified and improved a
bicycle trailer as an experiment in his humble workshop. He perfected the model
to carry a 300-kilogram load. ITDG sent the wheels of the model to the IT
Transport in London that tests innovations of this nature.
The
wheels of the bicycle on which the heavier load rests were tested and they won
the seal of approval for the safety and practicability of the cycle trailer.
Premadasa now trains groups promoting intermediate technology options in
training workshops in several parts of the country to manufacture these cycle
trailers. Modifications have been made on the original model and over 500 models
are in use.
Two
out of every three homes in Sri Lanka own a bicycle. Traditionally only men rode
cycles. But now women and children ride them, and in Jaffna in the north, saree
clad teachers ride them to school.
The
Sri Lanka Forum on Rural Transport Development (LFRTD) is a network identifying
enterprising mechanics like Premadasa in rural areas and helping them to produce
and demonstrate alternate models of transport that can be used by both men and
women, with some designed specially for women’s use.
A
bicycle can carry a limited weight only, generally about 75 kgs. A bicycle that
can carry a larger load can address the priority concerns of a large number of
people. The ITDG project developed a two-wheeled trailer made of an iron frame
that can be attached to a bicycle. It can transport heavy loads – up to 200
kgs - of produce, food, water and even people. ITDG has also developed an
extended bicycle by pushing back the bicycle’s rear wheel to carry 150 kgs.
Cycle
Trailer Lightens Women’s Daily Burden
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The
bicycle trailer has made life easier for many Sri Lankans |
Young Karunawathi in Suriyawewa was the first to buy the cycle trailer. She has
converted it into a mobile food outlet in which she carries her pots and pans
and her child in one trip to the market place where she sets up her food
business baking hoppers (a kind of pancake made of flour and coconut milk), a
favorite among the people who crowd into the market. Before she bought the
trailer she had to make several trips with her child under her arm on each trip.
The trailer saves her time, labor and her income has doubled and she has started
taking vegetables from her garden to sell at the fair. The burden of carrying
water has also been eased as she can now bring water for the whole week in one
trip.
Karuna’s
tiny village has seen many hardships. There have been droughts for several
months and shortage of water means walking several miles with a heavy head-load
in the scorching sun. When a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) introduced the
cycle trailer, Karuna bought one though she had never ridden a cycle in her
life!
The
cycle trailer reduced her burden of carrying heavy sacks of vegetables on her
head and carrying water, also on her head. She is now also able to minimize her
burden in going to the medical clinic when her children fall sick, as she was
previously obliged to carry them in her arms. She has also improved her income
by buying produce from her neighbors and selling them at a profit. She even
hires her trailer to others at times!
Balancing
the Load
These
IMTs have not only reduced the burdens of people, the users are now being
trained and promoted to train other prospective users.
The
International Forum for Rural Transport Development (IFRTD) in the UK is an
international network that aims at overcoming social, physical and economic
isolation of the rural poor in developing countries. It plays a major role in
advancing these technologies in these countries. Its goal is to improve the
accessibility of rural men and women by developing transport systems that
respond to their needs and potential.
“Balancing
the Load” is its watchword to give women of these countries a fair deal, and
has designed national policy guidelines on gender and rural transport. It is
also a research programme that looks beyond the stark figures dealing with
unequal transport burdens that women bear to identify the reasons for their
imbalance and the effects of interventions and changes in socio cultural
conditions over the last decade.
Over
the last five years it has commissioned researchers to investigate these
conditions and has produced case studies on transport issues in 15 countries.
Apart from Sri Lanka, these countries are Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana,
India, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines, Sudan, Tanzania,
Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Looking
at this list, it is clear that all these countries are heir to the problems of
poverty and the burdens that poverty imposes on them. The greatest promise for
them can come from improved traditional methods or technologies specially
designed for use in rural areas where road conditions are poor or where there
are no roads and where periodic flooding worsens the road situation. Improved
technologies, however, need to be cheap enough to be within their reach, simple
and durable.
Even
more importantly, they should be able to be manufactured locally and repairs
must be within their reach.
Sources:
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Balancing
the Load: Priyanthi Fernando (IFRTD)
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The
Triple Burden: Vijita Fernando (from a paper presented at the
biennial convention of the Centre for Women’s Research, Sri Lanka)
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Case
Studies: Lanka Forum on Rural Transport Development
Vijita
Fernando is a freelance Sri Lankan journalist with more than 25 years of
experience. She is a member of the Sri Lanka Federation of University Women,
Chairperson of the Centre for Family Services, which works with women and
children victimized in local conflicts and is a Board Member of a consortium of
NGOs working in water and sanitation in poor rural communities. Your emails will
be forwarded to her by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
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