Wild vs. West
Empowerment and African Tribal Cultures
Story and Photographs by Eli Weiss, WildiZe Foundation™

WildiZe Foundation™ would like give you an insight into the lives of some incredible women and communities, who, like us, are struggling for empowerment as they look to their future. They too, are increasing their self-reliance and economic stability while maintaining rich traditional lifestyles and cultures in a rapidly changing world. WildiZe Foundation™ is able to help implement fresh concepts and solutions to problems created by the onslaught of Euro-Western culture and twenty-first century needs. WildiZe™ does not seek to transform these cultures into versions of the West, or create unsustainable needs on already stressed economies with limited resources. The intention of WildiZe™ is to support these communities in creating their own successful solutions with respect towards gender, lifestyle, culture, resources, habitat and wildlife.

Westerners think of Africa as a wild and ancient land, seemingly out of time and place in our modern world. The clash between traditional lifestyles and modern western needs is most evident in tribal cultures. Many of these cultures are quickly and, sometimes too quietly, disappearing- generating disadvantage to all. For, from them we can learn the valuable lesson of a balanced relationship between community and resources. As Westerners, we tend to think of our culture as the only culture, failing to lend credence to cultures that do not even have the simplest commodities and freedoms that we take for granted, let alone the high technology we seem lost without. From our work, the distinct lesson for the whole world to gain from is that progress should not be equated with possession. With our advanced technologies we need to take the time it gives us to use them, wisely and well, to avoid further cultural degradation and destruction of our Earth's limited resources.

The groups we meet with are anchored by historical traditions and close-knit community ties. Working together, we are able to implement methods that increase economic and community stability. On the tribal community level this involves raising funds for education, providing AIDS awareness and prevention tools, basic medical care, and understanding the dynamics of empowerment and gender issues. To the western world, these may seem like uncomplicated matters in our culture of wealth and welfare, a public school system, accessibility and proximity, and the freedom of choice. But in most tribal and nomadic communities these are areas of great concern.

On top of an unstable economy from the get-go, and a fee based school system, these communities are also isolated by geography and distance from any formal city center, few adequate schools, little available transportation, no electricity, and limited or no telephone/radio communications. Increased population due to inadequate education and little access to reproductive health aids, places further stress on already depleted government, community and environmental resources. We also forget the direct impact the environment has on tribal life, in our culture of isolation and insulation from the nature around us.

Surrounded by our western amenities we don't often think about too much rain, or not enough rain, wildlife that competes with available food sources or the lack of this wildlife to feed our families. Yet, for millennia, these women and communities have survived in very much the same way, which is often survival from day to day, or at most week to week. What women accomplish in these communities in one day will make the difference of whether or not they have a tomorrow. In contrast to this, our life in the West is a paradise of choices that we have chosen to make difficult. When brought down to basics, here in the West, we have it easy. There is always a little corner store or market, a relative, a friend, or a government agency from which we can find what we need, and even the things we don't need. Just about anywhere we go there is, or we can create, employment that will bring some sort of income to buy or barter for necessities. By and large, basic education is available to anyone, and women may do as they wish with their bodies and their lives by choice and legal representation. If we don't like something our government does we can speak out about it without fear of reprisal. As a culture, we rarely consider our lives in any other light. Communities in emerging third world countries, with often-unstable or newly formed governments, have little or no access to resources beyond what they can gather from their immediate environment.

From being with these women in their communities we have seen that Empowerment is having the ability to choose from options to create a viable future. The women in Africa have so very little of the basic rights and freedoms that we westerners take for granted. What they do have in abundance is an insatiable ability to persevere in the face of the everyday struggle for survival, and a resonant joy in being alive. Because of them, we have gained a deep understanding that one’s actions mean a world more than words. It is this understanding of Life's crux we hope to impart by turning our words into action thereby taking responsibility and directly participating in the future of our planet.