Andrea
Testoni photojournalism
In
one of the poorest parts of Brazil a group of women has been fighting for
their rights. They are uneducated, live in very basic conditions but yet have
conquered remarkable improvements for themselves and their families. They
make their living out of a local palm tree called Babassu, but their livelihood
is under threat.
Fuel
of Life - The Women Coconut Breakers (Brazil)
They
now have a fully operational cooperative. They make soap using the Babassu
oil combined with their home made natural essences from exotic plants from
North Brazil. They are selling their oil to international companies such as
The Body Shop (UK) and Aveda (USA). But the most outstanding part of these
women's fight is that they won a very hard battle: the approval of a local
law called "Free Babassu".
Land
owners, some of them very powerful and influential, started to oppose the access
to the Babassu trees inside their properties. They make no use of its coconut,
only source of income for the poor community,but even so they choose to use
violence to keep the women away. Sometimes the fight left dead people in both
sides. To fight back, the women have united, have organised themselves as cooperatives
and have been persistently claiming their right to exist, to work and to dream
of a better life for their children.Their struggle has proved to be fruitful.
Under
this law the workers can now extract the nut even in some private areas.This
project tells the story of strong women, warriors that are still fighting to
have the right of a salary at the end of the month, to have a piece of land
to grow food for their kids, to improve their basic living conditions such as
sanitation, electricity in their houses and above all, to leave in peace.
