{"id":7397,"date":"2026-04-28T03:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=7397"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:50:11","slug":"reaching-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2026\/04\/reaching-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching women in socially-conservative areas, even in other countries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve been reading through some of my first professional blogs, from back in 2009, on archive.org. Back then, my blog was hosted on another site and all the content went away when that site went under. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some things have changed OH so much – and some things haven’t changed at all. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found this blog from 19 October 2009 and thought it was worth re-sharing. The sadness as I read, of course, is profound, knowing the situation for women in Afghanistan now, versus when I was there in 2007. It’s also sad to read because, for thousands of people, a career in international humanitarian work has been put on hold – not just in the USA (foreign aid program funding has been slashed in countries all throughout the world). But I’m sharing it anyway, with the hope that someone out there might still find it helpful – and this is the last in my month-long series about working in interntional development:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I was in Afghanistan<\/strong><\/a>, I was notorious for kicking-back field reports that stated “the community was consulted” about this or that project, but that never said if the decision-making included any women. Sadly, the report writers often came back to me with a scowl and lots of excuses about why women weren’t included when “the community was consulted.” Never mind that, even in Afghanistan, it IS possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you work in humanitarian and development efforts, you must always be aware that talking to the official leadership of a community, a region, whatever, does not<\/em> mean you are hearing about the needs of all citizens, such as minority populations or even majority populations — women. There are<\/em> ways to seek out and include women in even socially-conservative areas so that they can be a part of decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example of this is an intervention in Egypt which used Egyptian women to reach other women regarding eye care, highlighted in a brief article by the Community Eye Health Journal<\/strong><\/a>. The successful strategy they employed was this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n