By
Andrea Testoni
Fuel
of Life - The Women Babassu Coconut Breakers
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.
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Left: The communities are now extracting the essences from aromatic
plants to use at a soap factory. Their children help to irrigate the plantation
using buckets since they lack a proper irrigation system.
Middle: Seeds that were extracted manually from the babassu coconut
are taken to the COPPALJ, a cooperative founded by the women babassu coconut
breakers. Here they compress the seeds to extract the oil and this oil is
sold to the cosmetic industry like The Body Shop in the UK, and Aveda in the
USA.
Right: The wattle and daub huts represent the majority
of the women babassu coconut breakers' housing situation. Ms. Carmelita's
house was made 10 years ago and it is starting to fall. She needs approximately
£490.00 to build up a new one but her earnings are less than £
45.00 per month.
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.
