 Hello everyone. This is Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service on Primus Hutchinson. The issue today is Helens Daughters, a non-profit agricultural organization that focuses on empowering rural women engaged in the agricultural sector. To provide the answers is Ms. Keflin Karoo, founder and president of Helens Daughters. Welcome to Issues and Answers, Ms. Karoo. Thank you for having me, Mr. Hutchinson. Great. Tell us a little bit more. I just gave a sneak preview of what Helens Daughters is all about. Tell us a little bit more about Helens Daughters. Well, Helens Daughters is a non-profit organization that focuses primarily on empowering rural women in the agricultural sector. We started out in November 2016 when we got selected for a UN Women's Empowerment Project, and from there we've continued our programs. So it's sort of a UN initiative. What prompted it was that there was an open call for women's empowerment proposals, and I decided to send out an idea, a pitch about advocating for, I guess, initiatives that support rural women in St. Lucia, and we got selected for the Caribbean region. Why you decided that this is what you should be engaged in? What prompted that interest? That's a good question. At the time, that was my second year as a desk officer at the UN, and I had joined because like most of the people they want to help their country and so on. But what I found was that when I joined the organization, I was actually moving further and further from focus areas that affected the Caribbean region. So when I saw the call for proposals, I thought it would be a good way for me to have a job at the UN, but still maintain a connection to St. Lucia and still help in whatever way that I could. So rural women's daughters is a solution-based organization. How are we able to get it going here and get it in contact with the rural women and so on? I'm fortunate that everybody else on our board is based in St. Lucia, so I'm the only one that's back and forth from New York and St. Lucia. Getting in touch with rural women, it's been a mix of social media and also, I guess you could say offline canvassing, going to different markets and rural areas, using whatever would-of-mouth techniques that we could to try to market our programs to them. So at the UN at the time, you're still in the UN, but you're targeting rural women here on Ireland. Yes. How difficult was that? I mean, you mentioned social media, but in rural women, how are you able to trigger the interest? I think that social media has helped, even though I know a lot of people will say, well, people don't have access to that, but from my experience, what it has done is that it triggers the second generation of children of rural women. Many of our members and partner farmers actually got to know about Helen's daughters because their son or daughter saw our posts online and so on and then registered them. Like I said, we've also gone through the markets, done the canvassing in rural communities and so on. So it's been a mix of word-of-mouth and also social media, but through the children of farmers getting the word out for us in essence. How easy it was to get them interested, to have them to react and to at least follow your guidelines in that regard. I think it was actually easier than more people would think because in my experience, rural women tend to be invisible in the agricultural sector when there are training programs and capacity development initiatives. When somebody thinks about agriculture, they automatically think of a man and a farmer. And what we started off was advocating for rural women, highlighting the plight like market vendors and castries market and so on. And I think they were happy to at least get some type of spotlight on the issues that were affecting them. How was the experience? Were you able to visit rural women on their field? How was it? Did you go from community to community? And the on-hand experience actually engaging rural women as they go about their daily tasks? I have. Tell us a little bit about that. I have because I'm actually from a rural community. I was about to get into that, but anyway. Which is technically what I guess you could say pushed me towards advocating for rural women. So a lot of I'm surrounded by farmers and farmers' families. So it was easy for me to go from farmer plots that are near my family home. But we have also extended to different areas. For example, Miku, Denry, even as far as we fought actually going to their farms. Go ahead. And I was planning to come up with this question a little later. But now that you mentioned, you were from an agricultural family as well. Your granddad, one of the leading farmers at one time. And your grandmother. And grandmother as well from the far side. How did that impact your interest and so on in the field? And what was the experience like growing up with your grandparents? As far as agriculture is concerned? As far as agriculture is concerned, sadly my academic background is not like agriculture at all. We'll talk about that later. It lies in political science and international relations. But like I said, in a way my grandparents and parents sort of pushed me towards a different field like many other farmers. Because after the crash of bananas and so on, I think a lot of farmers felt like, why would I put my child or children into a profession that's that precarious? So my mindset was never on farming. But when I got to the UN and then I kept going back and forth. And I started seeing the statistics of St. Lucia's food import bill, for example, which is now at $360 million. Seeing climate change and the hurricanes that are affecting us. And just wondering how we would actually prepare for something like that. We're not due for a break, I'm sorry about that. We're not due for a break, but we will continue. Just hold that thought. Just stay tuned. Issues and answers will be right back. I constantly improve what I do and how I do it. I am output oriented. I never stop learning. I give of my best always. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council embracing excellence. Welcome back. This is Issues and Answers. We are talking Helen's daughters and the president and founder, Miss Keflin Karoo is with us. Before we took the break, you were telling us a little bit about how your family background impacted your agricultural interests. I had the pleasure and honor of working with your granddad in my previous profession as an agriculturalist. And I'm sure that they impacted your interests greatly because I knew them very well and they have a strong history in the field of background in agriculture. And you're telling us about that as well. So were you, by any chance, able to do a little bit of our cultural work yourself? Notwithstanding the experience in international relations and so on. Now that Helen's daughters came about in the last three years, now I got certified, for example, in agroforestry and so on. But now I'm actually planting trees for the first time and doing little herbs and tree crops and so on. But before that, no, I had never had any experience at all. Not even in planting a tree. That's a good story. How about the clusters, the various rural women clusters? How are they, how is it going now? What's the experience like? Well, the experience is that it does take a while to get to rural women. There are definitely some helpful partners that we have. For example, the sedition network of rural women, the president is Robin Darrell and she's been quite instrumental in highlighting some of our programs and pushing their members towards our programs and so on. So in that regard, there are a few rural women's groups that are linked to Helen's daughters. Who has been the assistance from the authorities as far as helping them out? The produce, selling the produce, markets and all of that. Is that a bit challenging? How is it working for them? It's challenging. For us, we started out with advocacy. Then that led to capacity development, which our training programs, like for example, we just launched our six-month rural women's academy. That's at Alias Fosses. And now what we're doing is we've created a social enterprise and in a sort of way, a women's cooperative, you could say, that facilitates the sale of these women's produce to the hotel sector. So we've been doing a lot of bootstrapping and work ourselves on the ground, to be honest. Okay. Gender equality has received lots of attention in recent times. How does that impact women in the agricultural sector? I think that it's definitely gotten a lot of spotlight or a lot of good media, but I think that a lot of people at times use the term gender equality just as a catchphrase because they know how important... Well, they see how some people view it as important. I think in the agricultural sector, and to be honest, I don't think it's really gotten to the point of opening the doors for as many women farmers as it should have. That takes me to the other question, youth and women. Do you believe they marginalize in the agricultural sector? What are your views on this? I believe that they're marginalized but in different ways. For example, with women, I think that the mindset is that a man is a farmer. Though people go to the market, the castries market and so on, they see most women, but they think of them as vendors. But they don't realize that a lot of these women are actually doing both jobs, farming and vending. For youth, I think that generally in Senusha, you hear, oh, Senusha and young people, they don't want to do nothing, they're lazy and so on. But I actually think that with youth, it's difficult because in the banana days, the reason why most people went into bananas was because they saw a lucrative benefit to it. With youth, they're not seeing that benefit at all, so I wouldn't blame someone for wanting to go into a profession without actually seeing the money that they could make from it. So in that essence, I think that they've sort of been marginalized, but it's in a way not their fault because they don't see the actual investment or the benefit. But that trend of thought, is it changing maybe slowly? I think little by little, you're seeing quite a few agricultural entrepreneurs that are popping up, but it's still not something I think you could go into a room full of young people. Helen's daughter has to be credited for that. I hope so. I mean, I wouldn't say that we're the primary reason for changing the mindset, but I really do hope that we contribute a little to that. Has there been any data collected to determine women's input in agriculture? That's actually a great question, and to be honest, there's gender mapping in St. Lucia. There's not really much data that you can find, not just in the agricultural sector, but overall. Have you all been looking in that direction and seeing how that can be rectified somehow? We are trying to develop ourselves. It's difficult because right now we're trying to do our capacity development on a small team that's mostly voluntary already. Are you all collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture anyway? No, we are not collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture as yet. As yet? But are you planning to? We hope so. The expertise is there. Yes, I mean, we let them know what we're doing, and our doors are very open for collaboration. So if they're watching, then Helen's daughter is very open to collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture. Okay, so hopefully in the coming years, one can look forward to, you know, greater cooperation with the Ministry of the Ministry and Helen's daughters working together. I hope so. I definitely hope so. Okay. Do you believe women can do more? Are you satisfied that they're taking advantage of the opportunities available? As far as agriculture is concerned. And I said opportunities available. I'm not sure if you believe that there are opportunities available. In agriculture? In agriculture. Oh, absolutely. I think agriculture is a very lucrative business. I mean, 90% of every developed economy in the world, one of them in exports and internal markets is agriculture. Look at the Netherlands, look at America and so on. I think in St. Lucia, we just, with bananas, it created a highly specialized economy. And farmers were never given the chance or the information to diversify and to get access to different markets. So hopefully with a little bit of investment and some information sharing and so on, we can actually change that. Okay, so for a woman farmer who may have heard of Helen's daughters to not have that much information and probably wants to be aligned or to work with you or to have contact with you or somehow, what are they supposed to do to be part of that organization? What exactly? It's quite easy. They can reach out to us on our number. It's 287-7700. They can also email us info at helensdottas.org. We are also on Facebook and Instagram, and we have our website as well, www.helensdottas.org. Do you have any specific produce, agricultural produce that you have given priority to or just agricultural produce generally? Do you have specific ones that you believe are marketable as far as the organization is concerned? We do. We are focusing primarily for our green gold initiative on fast cash crops. So for example, tomatoes, cucumbers and so on. Okay, and how's that going? How successful? Well, it's right now. It's something that we're currently working on. So later down the line, I'll be able to tell you. Most of the clusters, you mentioned a few of the communities that are involved. Perhaps you may need to just repeat the names of the communities. Well, we invite women from all communities, but primarily we have clusters in Babono, in Dennery, in Miku, in Viewfort. And they all engage in fast cash crops. Yes, they are. All right. Well, we will speak a little bit about yourself. We want to do that. You tell us a little bit more about yourself. But before we do that, anything interesting as far as getting the organization off the ground, something that may have, how should I put this? Not probably disappointing as such, but a few little challenges that you may have encountered. Yes. You want to tell us about that? I think the biggest challenge for me in running a women's organization and for our partner farmers is that they see us first as women and as professionals second. Just hold that thought. We'll get back to that. We do for a better break. This is issues and answers. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey, look at your breastfeeding. I give him both just now, but I don't think I can breastfeed. Why won't you breastfeed? The thing is my breasts are so small. I don't think I will have enough milk for my baby. My dear, you can breastfeed. The size of your breasts does not matter. The more the baby sucks on your breasts, the more milk your breasts will make. People say your breasts will fall when you breastfeed. I don't mind to fall. Eventually all breasts will fall. Once you wear a supportive bra, it will help maintain the muscles of your breasts while you breastfeed. Breast milk is very important for your baby's health. It is complete nutrition for your baby with the right nutrients. I did a lot of reading whilst I was pregnant and found out a lot of good things about breastfeeding. Really? Like what? You will lose the baby fat much easier when you breastfeed. The baby is more intelligent and the baby gets sick less. It is also cheaper and practical since you wouldn't have to buy artificial milk or boiled bottles. Breastfeeding does all that? A.A. Now you make me want to breastfeed. I want my baby to be healthy and smart. There's more. In addition, I saved a lot of money from not having to buy formula. Do you know how expensive formula is? No formula? How is that possible? The baby will go hungry? No. The breast is adequate for the baby's need from birth to six months. The baby needs no other foods or liquids during that period. Is that so? My sister had the baby last year and my granny insisted she give the baby to Oroma and she was only three months. Nothing before six months. The nutritionist will guide you on how to introduce foods to the baby. Wow. I learnt a lot. I had no idea breastfeeding was that important. Yes, it is. Breastfeeding is the best thing you can do for your baby. Do it and you will see. You will also bond with your baby. I will, my girl. Nice talking to you. I'm happy to hear that. Also encourage your friends and family too. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. We discuss in Helens Daughters and we have with us the president and founder of Helens Daughters, the non-profit agricultural organization, Miss Keflin Karoo. Before we take a break, we tell us a little bit about the challenges that you have encountered as far as the organization is concerned. You want to tell us a little bit more. Like I said, it's generally you're a woman first, a professional second. When they hear about Helens Daughters, it's more of a charitable organization that comes to mind. And you generally get the idea that people think, oh, that's quite nice. That's so sweet that you're helping your people. But they don't actually think of the long-term effects of actually empowering women that are in charge of our food security. Now, Miss Keflin Karoo, we can be discussing rural women in our culture. And we can't say something in Kuiol. We can't say anything in Kuiol. So, before we finish, I want to talk about the nation. Particularly the people who come here. How do you deal with Helens Daughters? How do you engage in agriculture basically? Well, Helens Daughters is an organization that supports the particular agricultural activities. We have a lot of people who come here to work. We have a lot of people who come here to work. And we have a lot of people who work at the farm. So, we're talking about a variety of training programs. But in total, we have about 100 different farms that come here. You have different farms here. Yes. Different communities here. Yes, we have Babonot, Denry, Miku for example. Okay, you have different farms here. Yes, we have different farms here. We have different organizations here. We can work with the farmers who come here to work in agriculture. Exactly. We can continue to work here. When we come here, we can contact them. We have Limowa, you know, we have a lot of people who come here. Limowa is 287-7700. See you near email. Use our email info at helensdaughters.org, and visit our website too. Okay. Next, you just want to share with us the alias for CES, Bow Point Seraphine. Each month, we have a training program here. Okay. We have a lot of people who come here to work. Particularly my wife, who comes here to work, and she is an agricultural worker. Helens Daughters is Mrs. Kuru, and she is here to assist. So, Mrs. Kuru, before we end, anything you would like to say as far as the organization is concerned? Future plans and what have you? Future plans and organization. I think we're just getting started. And I just hope in the agricultural sector in the next few years that we'll be making our mark as women farmers in St. Lucia, I think. And influence the direction that agriculture is going. I'm sure that you can perhaps play a strong role in that regard. We really do hope so. Okay. Well, almost in that same trend of thought, do you see, how do you see the future for women in agriculture here? I mean, apart from, of course, what you just said, and your plans for developing the agricultural sector, playing a role in the development of the agricultural sector, but women in particular in that regard. Do you see a better future for them? Especially... And Helen's daughters play in a serious role in that regard. Especially in this time and this current climate, I think that agriculture is probably one of the most important emerging markets that has to be redeveloped in St. Lucia. And I just hope that Helen's daughters can be a huge part of that redevelopment. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, Mr. Richardson. I was speaking with Ms. Keflin Karu, who is the president and founder of Helen's daughters. This has been Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm Primus Hutchinson. Thank you for viewing.