Grandmothers Promote Maternal and Child Health

This 4-page article from IK Notes, the World Bank newsletter on indigenous knowledge, looks at the importance of senior women, or "grandmothers," as knowledge providers on child health in families and communities. The results of experiences in Asia and Africa illustrate how change can be brought about from within indigenous knowledge systems when key actors in those systems, i.e. the indigenous knowledge managers, are involved in deciding if and how to combine global knowledge with traditional knowledge.

This article is grounded in concepts developed by Andreas Fuglesang, Swedish communication for development expert. He discussed the central role played by elders in information management in traditional cultures. He described the function of elders as the “information storage and processing unit” of a society, like the hard drive on a computer. He described their critical role in ensuring continuity between the knowledge and values of their forefathers and the needs of younger generations preparing for life in the future.

According to the article, development planners often overlook the significance of the socio-culturally grounded role of elders in developing societies who are expected to guide and supervise the younger generations based both on their “traditional” knowledge and their understanding of “modern” knowledge. And given the gender-specificity in roles played both by elder, as well as younger, men and women in all non-western societies, it is grandmothers who are designated as advisors on child health, given their experience in this domain. In this vein, the grandmother-inclusive approach to strengthening family and community health strategies supports Fuglesang’s assertion that attempts to bring about change in a society “must transform the fundamental programme for information processing controlled by the elders.”

Experiences working with grandmothers in several countries have demonstrated how their role as indigenous knowledge authorities can be built on, while at the same time they are encouraged to integrate new practices into local knowledge systems. It is likely that similar untapped potential exists among grandmothers in many other societies around the world.