The right to be heard
Chainu Prasad is a justifiably proud man.
"We went to court to get the legal right to fish these ponds," he says, showing visitors the pools now giving his community a living.
"Then we got backing from our government and that's when the feudal lords left our area."
Prasad heads a co-operative of fishermen and women in Bundelkhand, India. Formerly bonded labourers obliged to work for higher-caste pond owners for pitiful wages, they had little say over their lives – until they organised, demanded their rights, and got heard in the places that count.
It's a fight poor communities are waging worldwide, and Oxfam is doing all it can to support them.
Can anybody hear us?
Poverty is not just about obvious things like inadequate access to food, shelter and education. It’s also about nobody listening to you.
Because when people are poor, they usually lack power, which makes it easier for the powerful to ignore them. So millions have little say in decisions that affect them, and slim chance of changing their lives for the better.
Countless communities suffer in silence, denied the voice that could help free them from poverty.
Shut out and kept out
In the developing world, many governments and institutions exclude poor people from decision-making on issues that dramatically affect them – issues like spending on health and education. How? For example, by denying them the opportunity to contribute their views, or by holding elections that aren’t democratic.
Women find it particularly hard to get heard.
And what happens when poor people are ignored?
Even more poverty – because the longer poor people have no say in what happens to them, the longer their real needs go unmet.
The difference a voice makes
Oxfam works worldwide, helping people to speak out together, so their views and needs are heard and their basic rights are granted to them.
This can mean supporting people as they struggle for things their communities desperately lack.
In Malawi, for example, we trained volunteers from local village development committees, along with government workers, to help them decide together what poor communities needed most. They eventually came up with plans for bridges, wells and a literacy project.
And in Brazil, we’re backing the marginalised Quilombola community – originally runaway slaves – as they fight to reclaim land they traditionally occupied. The first Quilombola member of parliament was recently elected, ensuring their claims will be heard nationwide.
Helping people to find their voice is vital. Around the world, we’re helping poor people to secure other rights too, like proper access to information. This can mean legal advice, so their views carry weight with decision-makers.
We’re also supporting freedom of expression and people’s right to demonstrate or join a union – liberties denied to many, in affluent countries as well as poor.
