Gender and Technology Training Guidelines
SESSION 9 - Picture cards - These needs to be photocopied, if necessary, to make sure
that each participant has two or three cards.
SESSION 9 - Alternative Exercise - Handout 1
1 ‘A DAY IN MY LIFE’ CASE STUDIES
Intermediate Technology Sri Lanka started a radio programme in 1993 and 1994, to
share the message from the DO IT HERSELF programme with rural women in Sri
Lanka. The programme was centred around a fictitious character - Madam Tasty -
who had arrived in Sri Lanka from Europe to research the processing of jak fruit.
Madam Tasty discovers that her scientific laboratory experiments are useless without
the information she can get from rural women about their traditional processing
technologies. Madam Tasty builds up a rapport with rural women and on her travels
continues to share information in food processing technology from Africa and other
parts of the world. These letter were written to Madam Tasty to the Navaliya
newspaper (a women’s magazine) that ran a weekly page parallel to the radio
programme.
A DAY IN MY LIFE
CASE 1
Before I go into the way we spend the day I want to introduce our family members.
My Appachchi (father) works away from home. During the week days my mother,
sister, our cat and myself are at home. I studied for my advanced level examination
last year. Now I am at home. My sister studies in a Colombo school. My mother is a
very efficient housewife. Ours is a very pastoral village.
My mother and I get up at 3.00 am. Why should I write lies to you, we get up so early
because my mother makes string hoppers and we have to cook rice for our sister to
take to the school. Younger sister gets up at about 4.30 am.
As soon as my mother wakes up she boils the water to make tea. Unlike others who
writes to you, we drink plain tea with a piece of juggery or little sugar on the palm. I
specifically mention this because I don’t want you to think that all Sri Lankans drink
milk in the morning. We prepare lunch early morning. My sister leaves at about 5.30
am. My mother takes string hoppers to the boutiques at about 6.00 am.
Cleaning the house is my duty. That is not a difficult task. But I feel very lazy to
sweep the front yard because it is big as the Indian Ocean. Anyway I finish my
cleaning duty by about 8.00 am. My mother and I take leftover rice from the dinner
for breakfast.
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