THE idea of a World Rural Women’s Day was initiated at a UN Conference for Women in Beijing in September 1995.
It was decided that the special day would fall on 15 October, the day before the World Food Day, because of the key role rural women play in food production.
Rural women play a major role in ensuring food security and in the development and stability of the rural areas. Yet, with little or no status, they frequently lack the power to secure land rights or to access vital services such as credit, inputs, extension services, training and education. Their vital contribution to society goes largely unnoticed.
World Rural Women’s Day aims to change this by bringing rural women out of obscurity at least once a year – to remind society how much they owe to rural women and to give value and credit to their work.
Read more about what women are doing in the Zululand community HERE
