With the financial suport from The Donkey Sanctuary WLZ implemented a donkey welfare project named “Advancing working donkey welfare standards for enhancing women empowerment and building resilient livelihoods in Bubi, Gwanda and Nkayi districts. The project aimed to improve donkey welfare through unlocking the nexus between working donkeys and rural women in order to change the perception of donkey owners and users about these equine animals and how vital they are to community’s daily lives.
WHY DONKEYS AND WOMEN?
In most rural societies responsibilities and tasks are often assigned to women and men on the basis of traditional gender roles. Women are often in charge of a large variety of labour intensive activities in agriculture. These duties coupled with their responsibilities at household level make a substantial workload.
Women in most of the communities depend on donkeys to support them with physically demanding and time consuming household tasks such as fetching water and food, or agricultural work like ploughing and harvesting and other tasks within the wider community. “In simple terms, donkeys serve as the legs, backs, arms and heads of women throughout the developing world”. Without their donkeys, this strenuous work would need to be done manually, predominantly by women and young girls. Same as women, donkeys are the invisible helpers in homes and rural communities at large whose contribution goes unnoticed. Working donkeys play a fundamental role by lessening women’s and families livelihoods through their direct and indirect contributions. Yet, donkeys remain largely disfavoured and invisible in the eyes of many donkey owners and users. They are generally excluded from the definition of livestock by many due to the fact that they are less expensive and more resistant to different diseases and environmental stress. These animals are mostly used by resource-poor communities under intense heat and difficult terrain, with less provision for their welfare.
Key points of benefits conferred by donkeys to women.
- Lightening the women’s burden.(Reducing labour and drudgery of household chores).
- Direct and indirect income generation.
- Improving the social capital of women in their communities.
- Health benefits associated with owning donkeys.
- They help women care for other livestock.
- Donkeys are more gender-neutral than other work animals and in many societies, it is uncomplicated for women to own and/or have access to donkeys.
- They promote market access for rural women farmers as women’s trade and marketing restrictions due to head loading goods is broken by working donkeys.
The lack of recognition of their importance and their chronic neglect by their owners, users, communities at large and institutions also means depriving women of the additional benefits they could obtain from them. Therefore good donkey welfare is not a luxury but a necessity for women and their families