Monday, November 03, 2008 Editorial: Putting women on the map
RESILIENCE, they call it now.
But the strategies of communities to cope with poverty and other natural and man-made disasters have been there as long as the communities themselves.
“We work through common actions for a common goal, we call ours a movement because for ages these actions have survived,” declared Ana Lucy Bengochea of the Comite de Emergencia Garifuna of Honduras.
Her testimony was included in “Recipes for Resilience,” a report of the March 2008 workshop on the role of grassroots and indigenous women’s groups in disaster risk reduction, which was held at Antigua, Guatemala.
Bengochea joined other women leaders from communities in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Philippines and other countries for a regional meet in Cebu City last Oct. 22-27, 2008.
The Asian Grassroots Women’s International Academy gathered leaders to discuss a framework on community resilience, create a learning advocacy network in the region, and recommend for policies and programming to scale up grassroots mechanisms and resources for resilience-building.
The meet was organized by the Huairou Commission. This coalition of seven regional and international networks dedicated to improving marginalized women’s living and working conditions will present the resulting action plan for the development of strategic policy during the Nov. 3-7, 2008 World Urban Forum in Nanjing, China.
Learning from veterans
“Women play a central role in communities’ survival,” observed Prema Gopalan of the Huairou Commission’s Global Coordination of Resilience Campaign during the Oct. 22 dialogue of selected women leaders and Cebu print and radio journalists.
As family nurturers and grassroots residents directly affected by poverty and disasters, women have “tremendous experience (in) organizing emergency response and relief (particularly in physically isolated and socially marginalized communities).”
In contrast, points out the “Recipes for Resilience,” governments and foreign aid institutions resort to traditional emergency rescue and response approaches that are “top-down, bombarding disaster-struck communities with ‘resources’ that don’t match with community needs or lifestyles and tend to treat women as victims or aid recipients, not responders themselves.”
Often, traditional humanitarian aid prioritizes the reconstruction of visible structures. Causing greater unease is the increasing tendency of governments to resort to military interventions to mitigate disasters, noted Jan Peterson, chair of the Huairou Commission Secretariat.
Yet, in many patriarchal communities, it takes a disaster to make communities appreciate their women, said Linda Wati, a grassroots leader of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. In the reconstruction following the tsunami’s devastation, Indonesian women participated and even led communities in repairing the social fabric, from relocating and redesigning homes to planning how to reduce potential risk and vulnerability in the future.
More visible in public arena
As documented in “Recipes for Resilience,” grassroots and indigenous women perform key roles that range from emergency response to long-term community resilience.
In marginalized communities where men are often absent due to migration and work, women send early warnings; coordinate evacuations; provide medical aid; operate community kitchens; organize child care services; mobilize temporary shelters; approach government for assistance; and disseminate information for recovery and survival.
Indian leader Chithra Selvam added that women can be relied upon to mobilize savings and resources to meet the needs of their families, clans and communities. Because they learn to maximize their limited cash and resource base, grassroots women test and then finetune practical, innovative and sustainable strategies that protect lives, livelihood, homes and other community assets.
Their participation in disaster recovery has paved women’s participation in local governance. For instance, the Construction Resource and Development Centre pioneered in implementing community hazard mapping in Jamaica.
Introduced in selected barangays in Cebu City during the Asian Grassroots Women’s International Academy, hazard mapping involves community stakeholders in identifying local hazards and vulnerabilities; creating visual maps to reflect the community’s resources to deal with these risks; and planning with women, local leaders, government agencies, non-government organizations and other stakeholders to implement disaster prevention and management.
For securing the future, women are society’s best assets.
