When Florence Dery arrived at Queen’s to begin work on her master’s degree, she felt something she’d never felt before: cold.
“I had never seen snow or cold before,” says Dery, who was living away from her native Ghana for the first time. “All I had were summer dresses.” A friend told her about the Ban Righ Centre, where staff helped her find winter clothes. “It made all the difference,” Dery says.
Equipped with her new wardrobe, Dery met with her research supervisor, Dr. Elijah Bisung, in the Centre for Environmental Health Equity. Dr. Bisung was launching a study on empowerment in water and sanitation centres in Africa.
“He asked me what I could contribute to the project,” she says, “and I realized, ‘Wow, this is the moment I’d been waiting for.’ ”
In Ghana, Dery dealt with water issues every day.
“Every morning I walked for 15 minutes, got in queue, got water, put it on my head, and carried it home,” she says. “And then I went to school.”
Dery recognizes that she had it easier than some of her neighbours.
“It costs money to access water,” she says. “If you don’t have money, you have to go to the stream at the outskirts of the community. It’s a much longer walk, and the water is not sanitary because we share it with animals.”
Dery’s research – at both the master’s and doctoral levels – involved collecting stories of how access to water and sanitation impacts and empowers women. She discovered that few women were sitting on the committees that decide where to put the water sources. “Women are responsible for making sure there is water for the household,” she says. “To exclude us from decision-making about an issue we are responsible for is wrong.”
Today there are a few women on those committees, but Dery would like to see more. She’s heard women say they want to volunteer, but they’re too busy with household chores. Fortunately, a few Non-Government Organizations are campaigning to get men to help around the house.
“Men have started helping,” she says, “which is leading to more empowerment for the women.”
As her doctoral research nears its end, Dery continues to work toward empowerment.
“I am also trying to empower myself to give back whenever I can,” she says.
She started a foundation focused on teaching girls to make their own reusable sanitary products, which are rarely available in Ghanian stores. She says she was inspired by her experiences with the Ban Righ Centre.
“If they hadn’t helped me find clothes, my experience in Canada would have been terrible,” Dery says. “It made me realize that this is something I could do. It’s like I’m starting my own little Ban Righ Centre in Ghana. I’m empowering women and children, just like Ban Righ.”
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