Women's Development Bank
president Nora Castaneda: Creating a caring economy in
Venezuela
Ahead of a tour of the United States later
this month, Venezuelan Women's Development Bank president Nora Castaneda
explains that “micro-credits are an excuse to empower women ... we
believe that the economy must be at the service of human beings, not
human beings at the service of the economy ... we want to create an
economy based on cooperation and mutual support, a caring economy. We are
not building a bank ... we are building a different way of
life.”
Castaneda's first speaking tour is co-ordinated by the Bolivarian Circle
of the Global Women's Strike (GWS) with the support of the Venezuelan
Embassy in Washington D.C. and sponsored by Pacifica Radio’s KPFK, KPFA,
WBAI and actors Danny Glover and Ed Asner ... proceeds from the tour will
benefit grassroots women involved in self-help in Venezuela.
In a press release: Someone remarked upon seeing Ms Castaneda addressing
a large audience in the video, 'Venezuela – A 21st Century Revolution'
that “you don’t have to know Spanish to know that that woman is a great
speaker ... she is also a remarkable woman in a remarkable time ... one
of great economic and social change ushered in by the people’s defeat of
the 2002 coup d'etat carried out with the support of the US
administration."
President Hugo Chavez Frias,
elected in a 1999 landslide vote to tackle poverty and corruption, agreed
to the creation of a Women’s Development Bank (Banmujer) as a way
to fund reforms to benefit the poorest families and communities and he
appointed economist Nora Castaneda to head it.
Castaneda is of African and indigenous
descent ... like 80% of the Venezuelan population (including President
Chavez Frias) ... she is from a low-income single parent family and
having helped raise her brothers and sisters, she describes herself as a
“little mother” ... from age seven ... and a “revolutionary
feminist. She has prioritized women’s issues all her life ...
dealing not only with domestic violence, but with the economy and the
distribution of income from grassroots women’s point of view. She has
taken it as her task, to build not only a bank, but a new way of life for
women. She says “with 80% of the population poor, we cannot give away
enough money ... but we can empower women.”
“We made ourselves part of the Constituent Assembly. Each day, for as
long as the Assembly sat, two movements were on permanent attendance
there: the indigenous and the women’s movement. We had been
discussing it for years, and now our time had come. There, in the
Constituent Assembly, we won our womens' rights in the 1999 Constitution
... we won Article 88, which recognizes that housewives create added
value and must be compensated with social security.”
Castaneda was central to the 1999 Constitutional process that won one of
the most advanced Constitutions in the world ... for women and indigenous
people, as well as for all working people, and all those who face
discrimination on grounds of sex, race, age, disability. After
working for years to develop an agenda for women that included the input
(and addressed the dire needs) of grassroots women, she and others
picketed the Constituent Assembly daily “not to beg but to submit our
proposals!”
They won more than they
expected...
In addition to Article 88, women are visible
throughout the Constitution, which has incorporated the female gender in
all the text. Other articles, laws and policies favor women heads of
households ... 70% of households in Venezuela ... who are given priority
in the distribution of unused land and housing (one million hectares
and five million property titles have been distributed so far);
guarantee equality in the workplace between women and men; create breast
milk banks and state schools in which one million of the poorest children
are receiving three free meals a day in order to improve children’s
health; guarantee bilingual education, recognizing the language and
culture of Indigenous communities passed on from generation to generation
by women. Banmujer has granted over 40,000 micro-credits to women all
over Venezuela and is building a network of users.
Global Women's Strike (GWS) says it has been invited to Venezuela three
times by the Women’s Institute, and has met Castaneda three times ...
"each time, we have been impressed with her dedication, her
leadership, her revolutionary economic perspective, her anti-sexism and
her anti-racism, that are rooted in her commitment to grassroots
women. We all have much to learn from such a distinguished
representative of the women’s movement and Venezuela’s Bolivarian
process, and we want to make that information available to as wide an
audience as possible."
- We plan to have several events, including a reception, meetings and
press interviews, in each of the following cities: Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco
around the third week in January. The title of the tour is “Nora
Castaneda: Creating a caring economy in Venezuela.”
Selma James, international coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike
and Nina Lopez of the GWS Bolivarian Circle in London will accompany
Castaneda to provide introductory remarks and translation on both east
and west coasts of America. They will also show clips from 'Venezuela --
A 21st Century Revolution.' Phoebe Jones (GWS Bolivarian Circle/US) will
coordinate and chair east coast events while Margaret Prescod (GWS Los
Angeles, and KPFK presenter) will chair west coast.
Contacts:
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax: (604) 291-5944
Home: Phone (604) 689-9510