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More than 1,000 women from Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi participated in the SRBWI planning phase. They stated repeatedly and unequivocally that they care deeply about the quality of life in their communities (health care, schools, services for children, youth and the elderly), lack of economic opportunity, land retention and cultural preservation. The SRBWI regional advisory committee has taken the information gathered during its planning phase and framed it within a Human Rights Agenda (taken from the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights). This Human Rights Agenda recognizes the issues identified as symptoms of the violation of basic human rights to which southern rural black women and all human beings born free and equal are entitled.

They include:

• The right to human rights no matter what race, sex, color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation and class you are, or opinions you have;
• The right to have basic needs met, and whatever it takes to live with pride and become the person you wish to be;
• The right to a decent life including: food, clothes, a home, and medical care;
• The right to equal access to economic resources including credit, technology, information and training;
• The right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and
  favorable conditions of work, to be treated with dignity and
  respect;
• The right to free education when you are young with real
  opportunities for greater learning as you grow older;
• The right to safe, decent and affordable housing;
• The right to freedom of expression, including access to media;
• The right to culture and to benefit from scientific discoveries;
• The right to be treated equally by the law and protected under
  the law;
• The right to participate in government either by holding office or voting for others;
• The right to get help from society if sick, unable to work, old, or a widow;
• The right to build individual and community wealth, and to own property alone as well as in association with others, and the right to inherit;
• The right to choose to marry, choose who you want to marry, if you want to stay married and if you want to have a family;
• The right to rest and have fun and reasonable work hours

The gap between the human rights identified and their enjoyment by southern rural black women is in part due to a lack of appropriate governmental and private recourse mechanisms at the state and local level. SRBWI has engaged in a five year plan of action to promote women’s economic and social independence by eradicating the persistent burden of poverty on women. Structural causes of poverty will be addressed through changes in economic, social, and political structures and by ensuring access to education, training, technical assistance, resources and public services as vital ingredients to increased opportunity.

In the 77 targeted counties of the Black Belt of Alabama and Georgia and the Delta in Mississippi, SRBWI facilitates rural women’s access to resources, opportunities and public services, and advances community-centered economic and asset development strategy rooted in macro-economic trends.

Choose any indicator – poverty, poor education, unemployment, births to teen mothers, lack of health care, lack of transportation, infant deaths – and these targeted counties will trail the rest of the country. They are littered with evidence of social fragmentation: high rates of disability, single mother heads of household, low wages, poor living conditions, low expectations, and children at risk. To be successful, the SRBWI recognizes that the proposed action agenda will require adequate mobilization of resources at the local, state and regional level. And the establishment and/or strengthening of mechanisms at all levels for accountability to targeted constituents.