BACK	DEVELOPMENT-PERU: From 'Miners' Wives' to 'Businesswomen'

''Now I am a businesswoman. I was only a woman before, 'the wife of Toribio, the miner', they would say. But now I have my own money and can buy and sell my own animals,'' says Maria Mayta, one of the programme's beneficiaries, whose melancholy face lights up with a broad smile.

Yauli-La Oroya is a mining-metallurgic province. It was once also an agricultural region, but the toxic gases and waste from the mining activity have turned it into one of the most environmentally damaged parts of Peru.

The town of La Oroya is not a pretty sight. Unlike other Andean cities which are alight with bright colours, here everything has become a monotonous grey: the sky, the overgrazed and eroded hillsides and the modest houses. The grass is yellow and the water in the streams thick and slimy.

Local residents have a tired expression, as if they were short on sleep. Some have spots on their skin. ''It's the pollution,'' says a hotel owner, with a shrug. ''Here everything is a little bit polluted.''

The soil erosion and over-grazing is added to the destruction of local flora and fauna and the loss of hydrobiological resources due to the pollution.

The prospect of a miner's wage was attractive to many fleeing political violence and crushing poverty in other areas of the Andes. But mining activity dropped, the agricultural sector was unable to absorb so many new farmers, malnutrition rose, and people's health deteriorated because of the consumption of contaminated water and meat.

Unemployment among men rose more than 20 percent over the past decade, as a consequence of the privatisation of the country's largest mining complex, and women were forced to abandon their traditional roles as wives and mothers and join the workforce.

Female employment - mainly in the informal sector - soared by nearly 40 percent, while 21 percent became heads of their households in the absence of their partners.

But the informal sector was unable to provide a living to so many, and activities like street vending were overwhelmed by the pressure. Moreover, women had no preparation or training for their new activities, said Esther Hinostroza, director of the non- governmental organisation (NGO) Filomena Tomayra, which is implementing the micro-credit programme.

In the Andes, although mining is an off-limits activity for women, who are not even allowed to approach the tunnels, the wives of the miners (mineros) are also known as miners (mineras).

With an initial group of 300 local women, Filomena Tomayra has begun to implement its ambitious micro-credit and business administration programme, which aims to assist some 17,000 'mineras' by the turn-of-the-century. As well as small loans, the current beneficiaries are provided with advice and training towards becoming future promoters of the project.

The NGO took its name from a 19-year-old 'minera' who died in childbirth in Lima in 1982 after marching 185 kms with the miner's union to demand better wages and working conditions. Filomena has become a popular symbol of the miners struggle.

The communal banks operate under a system of ''solidarity banking'' - the members take joint responsibility for paying back the individual loans.

The loans are part of a larger credit lent under precise terms, in this case by the 'Fondo Contravalor Peru-Canada'. The administration committee of the communal bank divides the credit into individual micro-loans which are granted to each member of the ''solidarity group'' and invested in previously identified income-generating activities such as arts and crafts, livestock raising and marketing, and grocery shops.

The loans are paid back according to strict schedules, during meetings in which the investments and the functioning of the communal bank are evaluated, and the members receive the advice on business administration that they require.

''I have learned quite a lot. My husband used to do everything, he kept the accounts and gave me money. 'What do you know?' he always told me. But now I also handle money and he consults me, I feel like I'm worth something,'' says Marcelina Flores, one of the members of the communal bank.

''You know what's the best of all? We are no longer sitting down waiting to be given food or other things. Now we ourselves produce, invest and harvest the fruits,'' says another, whose happy smile is adorned with two solitary teeth.

The stories abound. Everyone wants to talk, tell how they recovered hope, how they learned to feel they were worth something, and that they want to continue forward. The times when they were forced to panhandle on the streets of the departmental capital or Lima while their husbands were on strike have faded into memory.

But the communal bank model, while rapidly spreading, is still in the experimental stage, and has forced even those in charge of implementing the project to modify some basic concepts.

''We want to be instruments of development and not simple facilitators of credit,'' says Hinostroza. ''We want to improve the quality of life of the 'mineras', help them develop their capabilities, and expand those changes beyond the family setting.

''We know it's a big challenge, but one of the first results has been the recovery of their self-esteem, a very important aspect that is not always taken into account in development projects.'' (END/IPS/TRA-SO/ZP/SW/97)