Women's self-help network
Organization profile published 1983

Year Published:  1983
Resource Type:  Organization
Cx Number:  CX2724

Abstract: 
The WOMEN'S SELF-HELP NETWORK is an organization of women who believe that encouraging the expansion of women's strengths into the public domain "can provide an ethical and political direction that moves self-help into social reponsibility," and goes far beyond developing individual coping skills. The NETWORK recognized that the types of self-help initiatives developed for an urban, middle-class population could not be effectively introduced into a situation where "feminism/women;s lib" may be equated with the break-up of families. The NETWORK collective is instead a demonstration project which speaks to the reality of women's lives in rural areas.

The NETWORK project combines three elements: a group method for problem analysis/problem-solving, the Friere popular education method, and a "value-context" that affirms women's lives. Women's daily domestic labour role in primary resource-based communities is analysed in the context of its relationship to the structures of industrial capitalism.

Over the past three years, the NETWORK has been preparing an eductional self-help kit designed to empower women in rural areas to organize for social groups. The kit (estimated cost $25) includes a training manual, guides to two courses developed by the NETWORK (peer Counselling and Women Working With Women). amd a booklet on process skills fo working collectively.

This abstract was published in the Connexions Digest in 1983.