Welcome to Dimitra Newsletter No. 16! This issue is devoted – as all our newsletters are – to the empowerment of women and men living in rural areas. FAO’s efforts in the Great Lakes Region highlight the fact that Farmer Field Schools can be instrumental in addressing a range of problems such as food insecurity, HIV/AIDS and violence against women. In Kenya, a number of Farmer Field Schools in the Coastal Region around Mombasa have broadened their curricula to include – in addition to a module on reproductive health – legal empowerment activities for the local population, who expressed great interest in this kind of initiative in the course of a field survey.