WEA moves beyond “development as usual.”
Purpose
Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) is a global organization that implements solutions to issues of climate, water, food, and land by connecting grassroots women environmental leaders to urgently-needed resources, training and advocacy.
The Problem
Worldwide, over a billion people live in extreme poverty, trapped in impoverished communities surrounded by environmental collapse with no access to education or productive employment. Women – caretakers, mothers, community leaders, healers, farmers, artisans, and resource stewards – face the brunt of these hardships. Their efforts to sustain and protect their families, cultures, and natural resources are nothing less than heroic.
This is a critical moment in history – environmental and financial pressures are at an all time high. The health of future generations and the sustainability of our world’s cultural heritage are predicated on the degree to which women worldwide have their basic needs met and importantly, are supported to be agents of change. Longstanding biases in development programs against women, coupled with sundry forms of discrimination, have reinforced indelible hardships for women (e.g., poverty, prejudice, isolation, violence, and lack of political power), placing them in persistent harm.
The WEA Solution
WEA is grounded in the global women’s movement.
In 2006 women leaders from 26 countries met in Mexico City to create a solution for a common concern: the lack of collaboration and support available to women at the front lines of social and environmental challenges greatly reduces their ability to be agents of change. The concepts designed during these early meetings laid the foundation for Women’s Earth Alliance. WEA spent three years piloting projects, learning from our growing constituency, and designing an innovative approach to social change.
WEA is moving beyond “development as usual.”
Rather than implement typical development strategies that direct resources to underserved communities to support basic needs, WEA invests in the existing leadership and knowledge of grassroots women. In each initiative, WEA identifies communities experiencing concentrated environmental threats and develops partnerships with local organizations addressing these threats. In collaboration, WEA delivers unique capacity-building trainings and advocacy services that combine microenterprise, leadership development, appropriate technology and communication tools to create true systemic change.
WEA’s strategy is regenerative.
Each woman participant multiplies her knowledge and skills by training others, creating impact that is truly scalable and economically viable. The track record of successful leadership among WEA’s participants, coupled with WEA’s global access to professional networks and resources, provides crucial leverage for systemic transformation. With this innovative positioning — at the nexus of women’s leadership, environmental sustainability, and economic development — WEA is poised to generate self-sustaining, and thriving communities worldwide.
When women thrive, communities thrive.
As WEA initiatives scale, thousands of women grassroots leaders, their communities and local environments will flourish. This will have a synergistic effect, optimizing the conditions for thriving communities that can uplift entire regions from dependency to autonomy.
Initiatives
Currently, WEA focuses its work in 3 regions:
Water supply and safety in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a joint venture with organizations A Single Drop and Crabgrass, WEA co-coordinates the Global Women’s Water Initiative (GWWI), designed to move women and communities out of poverty by supporting women’s livelihoods with sustainable water technologies and skills. The Global Women’s Water Initiative equips African grassroots women leaders with water technology training, business skills, networking support, and seed funding to launch viable water projects in communities across Africa.
Environmental justice advocacy in North America.
WEA’s Women and Land Initiative, through its Sacred Earth Advocacy Network, unites legal and policy advocates with indigenous women environmental justice leaders for advocacy towards sacred sites protection, energy justice and environmental health. Pro bono advocates in the Advocacy Network provide expert technical support services to indigenous-led environmental justice campaigns against environmental destruction and towards visionary environmental and human rights policy shifts.
Sustainable agriculture and local food economies in Northern India. WEA’s Women and Agriculture Initiative supports agricultural systems that embrace sustainable, land-based practices through the empowerment of women knowledge-holders and practitioners. WEA’s newest initiative aims to equip local Indian women farmers with training, business skills, networking support, and seed capital to launch sustainable agricultural micro-businesses across India.
2010 West African Women & Water Training Program from Unseen Pictures on Vimeo.
