Women's vulnerability to poverty : An ethnographic study of the life of women participating in a Red Cross microfinance programme in Entebbe, Uganda

Abstract: This dissertation was made possible with a Minor Field Study scholarship, financed by SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency). The study is based upon the life stories of women participating in a micro finance programme within the Red Cross in Uganda, Entebbe branch. A microfinance programme means giving financial services in the form of small loans for poor people in developing countries. Our purpose is to examine why the women participating in the programme need support to start up their own businesses. Further our emphasis is to examine how the programme affects and changes the life situation of the women participating. Our dissertation is an attempt to an ethnographic study. Empirical findings mainly consist of information gained through conversations with Red Cross workers and women participating in the programme and visits to villages and women groups. A qualitative strategy can further give a description of our methodological approach; we analysed how the women participants themselves described and interpreted their life situation. The study’s results describe how the women’s subordination in relation to men affects to their limited access to resources and vulnerability to poverty. The women’s subordination in the villages is recognized trough situations of exploitation, monopolisation and an acceptance of their marginalised position. Women are by men many times deprived from their benefits in work and excluded from important resources as for example education, because of their allotted labour. The women’s response to their subordination is acceptance, which preserves their situation. The Red Cross micro finance programme improves the women’s life situation in many ways but do not focus on changing their subordination in relation to men, which is the main factor that limits their access to resources and keeps them from rupturing their marginalisation.