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Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets By Sister Ling

Distributed By: Hands of Love GS

Title: Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

Date: December 2008

Author: Sister Ling

Organization: Hands of Love GS

Contact:[email protected] Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets---------December 2008-------Hands of Love GS

Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets By Sister Ling Organization: Hands of Love

Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Rural Employment Vocational Facts III. Social Factoring IV. The After Fact V. Who’s Successful? VI. Refueling the Power Arch of Rural Poverty VII. Leveling the Odds VIII. Conclusion

Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets By Sister Ling Organization: Hands of Love

ABSTRACT ______________________________________________________________________________ A short depiction of hidden life values and possibilities that need to address more lifestyle social factoring of the actual life choices of participants of world vocational type interventions to strengthen rural labor markets. Based on the real needs of families and the obstacles that face those in the third world and developing nations especially women. There are factual possibilities right with in the reasoning of why some fail in vocational interventions that lead to employment and others are successful. The goal is to present a thought provoking statement that is not answered in the paper, but surely will be something to think about. By looking at the client and the provider as real people who both have a needed place in sustainable vocational advancement into the labor market, it is the hope of the author that new questions and issues can emerge, that can bring the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) of the United Nations closer to more understanding of the real obstacles that employers, and service providers face, as well as their clients in third world and developing nations.

Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

December 2008 Hands of Love GS

Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

December 2008 Hands of Love GS

Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets By Sister Ling

________________________________________________________________________ I. Introduction The scope of what countless scholars of social sciences have focused on as the cause and effect of “Globalization.” The figures can be very misleading with in categorically defining real social factoring in trends towards gender-specific roles.With out the over all focus on the life of the woman or the man with in scenario depicted views, in some cases the facts and the real picture becomes distorted. Hence, makes planning the next step in the evolution of gender specific roles more of a spectacle then a working institution.Wages as it relates to a mans role and a women’s role many times in the modern prospective of a work theory show a stark traditional gap that may have only been closed by inflation it self. Many globalized women of today may make more money because the cost of living has gone up while men still make more, but the gap has closed due only to economic short falls and price increases. With in what future offerings hope to discover can never be clearly demonstrated with out including the fact of health related social complexes, as well as means and methods of health care being a force in the decisions of ones own self sufficiency. Many in the developing world are afforded an opportunity to earn a living. There are also social security systems in many nations such as Africa that are very similar to those in the first world. With out looking at more information about health related benefits that come with gender based employment. You may never have a clear picture of what the motivation is for the different types of occupations that many choose to enjoin in the third and developing world. If work is seasonal as farming in many cases is, there most likely would be a way that workers are paid that might promote them to miss-report their incomes to receive health care and other needed services for themselves and their families. This in turn becomes repeated statistics that might represent those who are more experienced at finding an income and then later become poor and desperate to get a certain service that is health care related. In turn this aggravates the real fact of those who are poor and can’t get a job against those who just show back up again at poverty related programs and then later find a job. Mean while the clients who needs the help(service) the most never are helped. This is a factor that is very likely to exist in many developing economies. As time goes on the most in need become so desperate that they become virtually unemployable because their whole life has been spent being a fixed number. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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The fate of a female worker who is employed and survives in this vortex of fixed numbers becomes in her own life, “A fixed portion of someone who always will be counted as poor to get by, even though she has worked and obtained things in the past with her earnings.” In her off season she will always be counted on to be hired again and counted as part of the success rate of poor who fixed their poverty over and over again. This scenario also limits her ability to be gainfully employed because in many ways she is employed. Employed by the local un-registered, un-regulated job and the system of poverty that will take her back each time. When famines occur due to drought and other global warming bad weather factors. The result in many cases becomes more then what is expected or can be processed through local and world aid services. The extreme face of poverty becomes more visible and the missing in depth vocational statistical data may be the missing key as to what really went wrong that so many people all showed up and needed help at one time. Hence the services in place may not be able to accommodate so many all together having no food or no money at the same time. This is also only a small part of a greater social cause for gender specific roles. 

The system of providing and receiving aid

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The position of certain economic and trade markets

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The invisible, hidden truth that has no safeguards or preparation if something goes wrong.

II. Rural Employment Vocational Facts “Rural Employment with in its concept of a person who lives in an area lacking technical advanced means of life is not in a true accurate form expressed in the developing world. What is allowed by means of trade and imported ways of life that have been delivered to the poor in many ways creates an extra burden of responsibility with out exercising the real consequence of the burden on those who acquire such advancements in their lives!” Sister Ling

In a vast majority of cases there is very little data to substantiate this fact based on its action and added expense. Where the data is available it seems not really accurate based on what can be viewed in the nation. Cell phones, radios, DVD players, laptops, televisions are not factored in as how many of the poor in developing nations possess these items under any criteria or how they got them. This has been a favored way in which business has been conducted in fact finding matters of statistics related to the worlds poor. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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The travesty of the alternate answer of any service applicant to an on site world sustainability program of work to aid to the question of: “Who in your family has a cell phone?” Could be violence, aggression or the threat of such, if this fact needed to be taken in to account. The reality with in the delivery system of acquired vocational services to developing and third world nations, would be how far has the allow-ability of what happens next in as far as the answer of: “Yes I have a cell phone, a TV or other items and still need the service and can be called poor or in need!” To many who cannot or do not want such extras in their life there is the fact that some participants know that the lifestyle of some of their fellow participants may in fact be more advanced then their own. If a program is put into place to teach a trade or a new more efficient way of doing a rural job can the hidden facts be the reason of some participant’s success and others who fail? It is not in the best interest of any sponsoring agency to promote views of rural inhabitants watching TV using their cell phone. III. Social Factoring With in the fact of the low success rate of many programs at face value in a people working with people situation, both have to form opinions and even decisions about each other very quickly. ATTRIBUTES OF FIRST TIME OPINIONS OF ON SITE MEETINGS OF A CLIENT AND INTAKE PERSONAL

CLIENT IN NEED

SERVICE INTAKE PERSON

Poor

Knowledgeable

Distressed

Helpful

Desperate

In Charge

In Need Person

Will Approve Me

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Attribute Criteria 

Most in nation on site programs are for the poor.

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Designed and implemented to help them elevate to self sufficiency.

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The guidelines of the program are set to see that each participant meets the criteria of economic need to be included.

HIDDEN ATTRIBUTES

CLIENT IN NEED

CRITERIA

SERVICE INTAKE PERSON

Poor

Has working cell phone

Could be a Friends

Distressed

“Heard about it on TV!”

Maybe it’s a communal TV

Desperate

“How long will this take?” In a

Needs to meet relative for help

rush has some place to go. In Need Person

I have no food or health care

Lives in a Rural slum of high poverty

Approved for service

Where they live, reported income, past history of poverty

No way to ask how did she come by her technology

The fact of a hidden economic ability to have a cell phone, get a TV and obtain a car battery or generator for power becomes a hidden major factor in why some get out of extreme poverty due to intervention and some never will. Getting out of poverty coincides with getting a job. IV. The After Fact In what needs to be understood above the expressed possibilities, is not that the person with a little bit more technology in a rural setting has these things. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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But it is the fact of the expectation of the criteria leaving these facts out and those who get a job and then lose it, those who take out a Micro Credit loan for farming equipment and then fail to raise a better crop to earn a living after they have received the intervention. In the after the fact scenario each side cannot see the extenuating circumstances of their own condition: 

The program provider personnel

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The client that has more

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The client that has very little

Women have the most unique and devastating end result based on why they may or may not be able to obtain certain types of advancements in their life against those women who can. Much of which is based totally on the women’s own personal being or life situation. The person who gets the intake and the selection for the program that is supposed to change her life has already received a type of judgment based on who she is and what she could or could not obtain in her life. She is either someone who could or could not get someone to help her. As the on site service provider, one day you may need to call the village so someone who has a cell phone now comes in handy. If you visit the homes of some of your clients you may see that some have power systems through car batteries and even generators in place. Their surroundings may be poor and cramped but in this small space that is their inner life, they have been successful at obtaining technology. You as the service provider may feel a certain way about this person. In most cases you and your mission or organization are funded so this now becomes your secrete that this is going on. The person is female and in most cases has not earned what she has unless she was very lucky and had some money when a good price came by. In most cases it is the males around her or the more successful females who helped her and provided or helped her obtain these technologies. In all that she does she is so far ahead of her neighbor and fellow service recipients that in everything she will do or try she will do better. The client in which the program was really designed and aimed at helping can be over looked completely in this scenario. V. Who’s Successful? The camera lens and her success is the basis of the program. The success of the intervention and the reason the program was funded. But which client is she? Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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It is also realistic in thinking that her counter parts as nationals of the same nation but not peers who may have went to well known universities and made careers in world sustainability will also deny the fact of her success and her failure. She is one woman in the story of world sustainability but in real life she is two very different women, two women who are statistically seen as one women The fact of obtaining long term unassisted self support will be almost non existent based on this very same pattern of non recognition of the true plight and disadvantaged position that many developing nation and third world women face. The capitalistic franchise of the ability to allow no accountability with in the facts of learning a trade and then getting a job reflects this repetitive service pattern of developing and third world women and men over and over again. Many fail and slip through the cracks. The out come from the in take process to the graduation of her completion of any given program that leads to providing an income for herself and her family has still seen her as one woman. One that will be back and one who will never get out of her situation. The issue of the most socially in need has been reset again as you have given the go ahead because every one saw the phone knew about the TV and the power source but it was never addressed. With out knowing you may have refueled the very sad but true power structure that may be the hidden attribute in why life is not getting better for women in the work force of; developing nations and the third world of poverty. VI. Refueling the Power Arch of Rural Poverty

Child care in addition to safety can be the next major obstacles in the power arch of women living in a developing and third world lifestyle. The no accountability factor now becomes a social risk factor in the hierarchy of local and regional rural living. In many ways there was no accountability that some participants in vocational training in rural areas had certain advantages from the start. By simply saying, “I have or had a husband or a supportive family who helped me get the phone!” Could change the out look of the whole class if someone had asked this question. When it is time to get a job if one is available or earn a living, in the same way the less successful women received help she had not been held accountable for it. The accountability was the program was really for her the one who needed help the most and then she could not get this help! In a different view the more successful woman was not shown that her good fortune was one of the reasons she has done well in her transition from training to self support. She now may see her less fortunate counterpart as a threat. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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That through her ability to have obtained technology first and then becoming self supporting the fact of the other woman getting what she has already can be seen, as a direct threat to what she has thus far achieved. By receiving the training, becoming self supporting and then reaping the rewards of maybe having a cell phone, a TV, a source of power to make it work with the money she earned the less endowed can become the enemy of the more endowed woman from the very start. As the intervention provider because you did not address the issues of simple items as having importance you in many ways have approved its existence in the woman’s life. If the women with less to start acquires such things based on the intervention your program provided she would have done this in the right way. Even though there are no rules or guidelines to judge a device that could be a gift as a source of income. The fact that it is still not what the program is based around: Women and in some cases men who have such luxuries. In the social world where they live the successful woman may find ways that she can turn her jump start against other women so they fail. In most cases she has only reacted in this way out of fear because she really doesn’t know if having a cell phone or a television can be used as income simply because no one said any thing. She can and will take her share of the new earnings and become the successful sponsor in a limited way of others and say: “Don’t watch her children; bother her children at school so she will be called to school often. “Steal her money because she is an easy target”. The fact is this is a hidden problem that most on site service providers feel is above their duty to become involved in. Later there is now a woman that could not get or hold a job. A woman who can do nothing to change this because the obstacles in her way are so vast, at so many levels, if no one takes the time to see this, it can never change for her and possibly her children and maybe their children too! Along the line of this disturbing view there were points that the issue could be lessened. As an on site provider especially in vocational programs you have to be non bias in your view. Selecting women who seem the most poor to peer to in the training encounter can back fire greatly as she may already be much to far to reach in her condition and lower the over all success rate of all the women as well as the program itself. VII. Leveling the Odds The truth is there is no criteria if a woman has access to property that this would change her individual status as poor to not poor enough. Most are all just social status symbols in how others around you view you. This is also the key to conditioning the participants by changing the view. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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Accept the possibility of everything that has been presented thus far as having a reasonable probability of becoming real life actions. In doing this you may see a different response in the participants. By never using one clients leverage for your convenience, by not visiting program participant’s homes or make approval gestures towards a better living arrangement of one client to the other. If you must become part of that inner part of your client life. Remain not impressed and stick to the guidelines of the expectation of what you have been funded to do and the expectations of those types of lifestyles that you have been entrusted to change. This can add a level of professionalism that will make a better over all success rate of more women and in some cases men who do better once they have entered the job market. You did not show favoritism but in some ways you have expressed the indirect value of helping someone who has the least with out painting a flag over their head. Having expectations of the next phase of sustainability from a vocational stand point while you are in the training process can also send a message, “That it is good to help your fellow participant which in many cases might be to just leave them alone.” Question such as, “That’s a nice phone does it work and where did you get it?” If you follow up with the response of,” That’s nice but we don’t really count that as income and please keep the phone on a quite mode while we are in class!” Can reinforce the purpose of the program and at that same time let the participant know she will not get in trouble or be found ineligible for the service because she has a phone. You may also find out other information such as, the participant worked before, which she may not have divulged in her application process. The information that you may acquire is social and not administrative. In all actuality to use personal property as an income definition many on site service providers would have to see the whole format of their agencies application package change. The reluctances that may be felt by on site service providers to think this way,may be part of a more main streamed trap. A trap that both the participant and the service provider may all have been caught in at the same time. VIII. Conclusion To rise above the current state of poverty and achieve long term self sufficiency at every level is not an easy task. It would be expected that any deviation from the already in place system is not that easy to do. With in a changing world there needs to be a better success rate of those whose programs are funded by others and can then show progress to the donor that leads to the progress of world sustainability programs that can go on to the next level. This may be modernization through investment, refurbishment of communities as well as changes in the over all system that deals with the worlds poor in general and over time. There may need to be acceptance in the world aid community that no matter how much some people are lead to self sufficiency they will not be able to for the long haul sustain there own way of life. Hidden Values in Third World Rural Labor Markets

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This message needs to be clear and defined by numbers and facts of on site programs with in realistic terms of all factors. In this way the story will be believable and new ways and methods can be supported by world governments and world aid donors to continue with the progress that has already been made in the third world and developing nations in the future. References International Trade Liberalization and Gender Wage Inequality: A Cross-National Analysis 1975–1998, Lisa B. Meyer State University of New York, Geneseo Working Paper #289 September 2007,pp1 The U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of Policy, Social Security Program Throughout the World Africa ,2007 http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-7HB4EJ?OpenDocument The UN system response to the world food security crisis (as of 31 July 2008) http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/BG1082.cfm The World Bank and Economic Growth: 50 Years of Failure http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Global_Comm/Global_University.html TOWARDS ESTABLISHING A GLOBAL/LATIN AMERICAN (ELECTRONIC) UNIVERSITY

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9577&page=83 Assessing Vocational Education Research and Development (1976) National Research Council (NRC) http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/printer_4948.shtml Cell phone usage soars as plans become cheaper By Thalif Deen Re: UNITED NATIONS (IPS/GIN) http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/cell_phone_culture.htm Cell phone culture MIT Communication Forum November 2005 compiled by Peter Rauch photos by Brad Seawell http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2008/20080711-Fri.html Morgan Stanley Global Economic Fourm Emerging Inflation? July 11, 2008 By Manoj Pradhan | London

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