Overview

Imagine a setting in which it was commonly thought that ""women don't learn"". Many also asked, ""Why should they?"" Into this environment, a young, recent university graduate was sent by the Peace Corps to create a program in home development for village women. What happened is the focus of this book. The story of what transpired is told through the narratives of the women who challenged traditional patterns of subordination and seclusion to take up the opportunity to learn. The setting is the villages of Comilla in what is now Bangladesh, in the early Sixties. The place is the Academy for Rural Development created to bring economic and social improvement to this area. The main characters are village women of all social and economic strata who faced extreme disapproval from family and others as they joined training classes. The initial stimulus was simple: ""to earn a few pennies"" to relieve family needs. Over time, however, their acquisition of knowledge and skills transformed their abilities to take initiative, to influence others, and to accrue status in their villages. The accomplishments of these women in transforming their own lives and those of their families and other women is remarkable and engrossing. Their experiences present a small but essential contribution to the history of women in Bangladesh. It deserves not to be lost.

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9781764449700

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Reviews

""Voices Across Time - part memoir and part history - tells a powerful story of development and transformations amid rigid traditions and adversities. It is also about a moving personal journey inspired by a call for public service. Florence E McCarthy shares her remarkable field experiments and experiences in Bangladesh dating back to the early 1960s. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in Bangladesh's economic transformations that have been powered by and in turn empowered women."" Faisal Ahmed, Deputy Chief, Strategy and Evaluation Division, IMF

Author Information

Growing up on a small farm in California, the author, as a young Berkeley graduate was sent as a Peace Corps Volunteer to what was then East Pakistan. Her assignment was to establish a program in household improvement for village women in Comilla, under the auspices of the Academy for Rural Development. This experience in women's development led to doctoral studies in the United States. In the years following the establishment of Bangladesh in 1972, she was Advisor to the Women's Program of the national Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP), Head of the Women's Section of the Policy and Planning Division of the Ministry of Agriculture (1982-1986), and later Advisor regarding development priorities in women's programs for Norway, Sweden and Denmark in Bangladesh.Leaving active involvement in Bangladesh in 1989, she returned to academic life. Since then, she has contributed to establishing academic Service-Learning in South and Southeast Asia, as well as new programs in refugee education. She has published widely on these topics.

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