WUNRN
Empowering
Grassroots Women To Build Resilience Communities
16
Jun 2007
GROOTS
International and AJWS
Website:
http:/
Bulding resilience
Swayam Shikshan Prayog
GROOTS
International's Thematic Programme on Community Resilience seeks to empower
grassroots women to build resilient communities. This programme emerged from
member organizations' work in disaster-hit communities in India, Turkey, Honduras
and Jamaica. Member groups found that disaster response programmes were
opportunities for women to become active participants in shaping the futures of
their communities. Through their participation, grassroots women have developed
innovative solutions that address practical problems of shelter, credit,
livelihoods and basic services-all of which lie at the intersection of
resilience and development. What is unique about these grassroots solutions is
that they also re-position women in the eyes of their families and communities.
This publication highlights roles that grassroots women are playing in building
resilient communities and insights emerging from resilience building efforts
led by grassroots women in Peru, Jamaica, Honduras, Turkey, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka and India. .
Global
initiative to develop community trainers In 2006 GROOTS International in
partnership with American Jewish World Service launched a global programme that
seeks to build on the expertise of grassroots leaders in disaster prone areas.
This unique initiative builds on the knowledge and skills of grassroots leaders
in order to create a global network of community trainers who can train other
disaster prone communities. Having initiated and sustained innovative community
practices after earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and the tsunami, these
community leaders are better equipped than anyone else to teach other
disaster-prone communities how to shape risk reduction, relief, recovery and
reconstruction processes to the advantage of disaster affected families and
communities.
A
GENDER EQUITABLE, COMMUNITY BASED APPROACH TO RESILIENCE BUILDING
*
Recognizing and resourcing grassroots women's role in community resilience
building
Much
of what grassroots women do to strengthen the capacities of their families and
communities to cope with disaster is neither recognized nor resourced by
institutions. Grassroots women undertake public roles that accelerate community
recovery and ensure sustained community participation in reconstruction and development.
These
roles include organizing and mobilizing communities, ensuring food security,
managing construction of safe shelters, improving community access to basic
services and demanding greater accountability from government on behalf of
their communities.
Recognizing
this work involves allocating resources for women to undertake these roles and
ensuring that grassroots women participate in the design, implementation and
evaluation of resilience building programmes.
*
Investing in grassroots women's leadership and organizations Resilience
building processes take time. The economic, social and political
vulnerabilities of communities living in poverty can only be reduced through
sustained, long- term change. While disaster response provides women with
opportunities participate in community decision- making, women need their own
organizations and leadership to sustain their new public roles and bring about
lasting change in their communities; to empower themselves to participate in
shaping both development and resilience building programmes in their
communities.
*
Providing multi-purpose spaces for women and children For women to empower
themselves to take action, they need physical spaces in which women can meet
and in which they can be certain that their children are safe. Regular
gatherings of women are usually the first step towards organizing collective
action and forming grassroots organizations. The experiences of Foundation for
the Support of Women's Work in Turkey who pioneered the use of safe spaces for
organizing women in the context of disaster response have demonstrated ways in
which Centres for Women and Children respond to a range of practical needs such
as incomes and childcare while also being used for collecting and disseminating
information and negotiating with officials.
During
an exchange workshop organized by Groots International and UPLINK, Indonesia
workshop for Community Trainers in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Fatima Okcu explained,
"Women's first priority of women in the relief camps was to ensure the
safety and well-being of their children so they set up children's tents as a
safe place where children could play. Next to the children's tents they put up
women's tents of 60 to 70 square metres.
Women
gathered in these tents at first for social support and then to do economic
activities. Later they began to organized to improve services in the tent camp.
They negotiated with camp managers to improve food and sanitation in the camps
and soon they had six makeshift centers for women and children in different
camps"
*
Empowering grassroots women to participate in decision-making Women are usually
excluded from public decision- making. Risk reduction and post disaster
recovery and reconstruction processes are opportunities to change this by
promoting public participation of women with the support of families and
communities. Dialogue with local authorities, government and other decision
makers serves to increase accountability to communities and convey community
priorities to decision-makers and thus lays the foundations of future
collaboration.
*
Enabling grassroots women's organizations to manage information Supporting
grassroots women's participation in programmes means assigning them clear
roles.
One
of the roles that women have successfully undertaken that of information
managers. Grassroots women have played the role of information gatherers
through mapping and surveying their communities to understand community needs
and to claim resources; and improve access to services, infrastructure and
entitlements for their communities.
*Appointing
grassroots women leaders to evaluate resilience building programmes If it works
for women in generally works for the community. Getting women to monitor the
distribution of aid reduces corruption and waste; and ensures that aid is
directed to those who need it most. Getting women to evaluate programmes and
provide feedback on what works and does not work for their communities is a
good way to make sure that that NGOs and Government get real information about
community concerns.
*
Assigning grassroots trainers to scale up effective community practice
Community leaders who have done innovative to help their communities cope with
disaster know exactly what works and what does not work at the community level.
Peer learning is a powerful tool in which community leaders teach and learn
from one another. Grassroots groups in the GROOTS network have expertise in a
range of areas that include securing and constructing safe housing; managing
women and children's centers; restoring agriculture and protecting
bio-diversity; ensuring food security during disasters; improving health and
sanitation; providing crisis credit; organizing emergency response; monitoring
distribution of aid; assessing recovery programmes and negotiating with
officials. Women leaders with expertise must be supported to go out and train
other risk-prone communities.
HOW
GRASSROOTS WOMEN ARE BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES
>
Building social networks to share risk
By
organizing groups, cooperatives, federations and other kinds of formations
which collectively address social, economic and political problems facing
communities, grassroots women are creating strong community networks who can share
risks and pool resources including knowledge and information to mitigate risk.
These networks, collectives, federations and cooperatives are evolving into
robust community owned institutions that can sustain and scale up community led
efforts.
In
Turkey, women supported by the Foundation for the Support of Women's Work have
their own credit and housing cooperatives to finance individual and collective
enterprises and housing for low income families who were affected by the
Marmara earthquake but as renters are not entitled to replacement housing from
the Government. In Honduras, a network of indigenous communities in 16 towns
created their own organization called Comite de Emergencia Garifuna. In India,
women supported by Swayam Shikshan Prayog in earthquake- hit areas of
Maharashtra, Gujarat and in tsunami hit Tamil Nadu women have organized their
own federations of savings and credit groups. Supported by Covenant Centre for
Development, fishvendors, shell collectors, craftspersons and coir-workers have
formed their own federations. These federations provide thousands of women with
access to crisis credit and enterprise loans.
In
Sri Lanka, Sevanatha is supporting grassroots women in two cities to create
their own associations. In Aceh, Indonesia Urban Poor Link has supported
tsunami affected communities from 23 villages to create their own organization
called Jaringan Udeep Beusaree. In Peru, NGO Estrategia has supported
grassroots women to create their own network called Mujeres Unidas para un
Pueblo Mejor.
>
Constructing safe shelters
Several
organizations in the GROOTS network have supported women from disaster-hit
communities to learn about construction techniques as well as supervise and
manage construction.
In
Lima, NGO Estrategia partnered with the national housing research institute
SENCICO to train communities in Pachacutec a poor, highly risk prone
neighborhood in Lima to produce concrete beams and blocks for building
earthquake resistant houses. Communities constructed demonstration houses as
part of their training. Estrategia, in partnership with the local government,
is currently developing a housing pilot program that will give housing grants
to low-income families to construct earthquake-resistant housing.
In
Jamaica, Construction Development and Resource Center has trained women from
hurricane affected communities to build low cost hurricane safe roofs for their
homes. Once women learned this technique they would ensure that contractors
implemented it while building their houses.
In
Maharashtra and Gujarat, India - following earthquakes- and in Aceh, Indonesia
- after the tsunami women participated in supervising the quality of house
construction, to ensure high quality construction and reduce construction
costs.
In
cyclone prone Andhra Pradesh, Sanghamitra Service Society is bringing
communities together with the government to repair and improve nine cyclone
shelters.
In
Duzce, Turkey, after the Marmara earthquake (1999) housing became a serious
problem for renters who were not entitled to replacement housing. Women in
Duzce created their own housing cooperatives have begun constructing houses for
renters who did not receive replacement houses from the Government.
The
Foundation for Women's Work advocated on women's behalf to buy public land from
the Ministry of Public Affairs. With assistance from Technical University of
Istanbul the women's cooperative has completed construction of houses for half
the families.
*
Protecting natural resources, upgrading livelihoods and increasing food
security In Asia and Latin America, member groups are reviving traditional
practices to protect natural resources and bio-diversity to mitigate disaster
risk.
The
indigenous Garifuna communities living on the north coast of Honduras received
no outside rescue support or relief after Hurricane Mitch. Communities were
left to fend for themselves. Community leaders who founded the Comite de
Emergencia Garifuna have since decided to address food security by reviving an
indigenous root crop which can be harvested in the event of floods or
hurricanes and processed to make into bread which lasts for days. Garifuna
farmers have also created their own seed bank to ensure that the indigenous
crops can be replanted if they are destroyed in floods, landslides or hurricanes.
In addition they have also planted indigenous fruit trees along the coast to
prevent soil erosion.
Covenant
Centre for Development is supporting women in coastal Tamil Nadu to raise
nurseries for planting mangroves to protect the coastline. Farmers federations
formed after the tsunami also contribute to a community grain bank with a
capacity of 90 tonnes in Nagapattinam district. CCD is also working with
coastal communities to help fisherfolk increase their incomes by diversifying
their livelihoods and reducing their dependence on fishing.
Sanghamitra
Service Society in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh, India is facilitating
community involvement in planting and protecting mangroves through community
mangrove protection committees. Communities are also trying to reduce the
coastal communities' dependency on fuel wood.
*
Improving access to basic services Few people in the disaster risk reduction
community talk about improving basic services as part of a risk reduction
agenda. Yet the lack of access to basic services often both a symptom and a
cause of community vulnerability.
In
Tamil Nadu's tsunami affected areas, women identified health and sanitation as
a community priority that no one was addressing. Grassroots women organized
themselves into ASHAA groups (Arogya Sakhis for Sanitation and Health Action
and Awareness) who are educating communities to recognize symptoms of
ill-health, seek medical assistance, to improve environmental sanitation, to
use herbal remedies and to access government and private healthcare services.
ASHAA groups also work closely. with Government primary health centres to
ensure that they respond to the needs of communities. Ashaa women in twenty
villages in Tamil Nadu partnered with primary health centres to prevent
chikunguniya, a disease which had reached epidemic proportions in southern
India.
*
Providing access to credit and markets
To
get back on their feet disaster-hit communities need their livelihoods restored.
Grassroots women's organizations are doing more than this. They are organizing
disaster- affected communities to upgrade their livelihoods by supporting them
to access credit and markets to upgrade and scale up economic activities.
Because most grassroots initiatives to upgrade economic activities depend on
collective work and the pooling of resources, it means that they are also
pooling risk and sharing losses thus reducing the economic vulnerabilities of
individual women and their households.
Having
organized indigenous communities to restore their agricultural practices, plant
fruit trees to protect their coastline and revive traditional crops after
Hurricane Mitch, Comite de Emergencia Garifuna in Honduras has created a market
space for Garifuna farmers.
In
Tamil Nadu, India Covenant Center for Development has supported women and men
to restore contaminated agricultural lands after the tsunami; and has
facilitated disaster affected coastal communities - both men and women - to
form savings and credit groups and negotiate better prices for their products
in markets. A storage facility constructed in Nagapattinam district allows
farmers to store grain and negotiate better prices. In addition the
coir-workers federation run by women coir producers) in Kanyakumari district
has opened a retail outlet to market its produce and to establish contact with
big buyers.
In
Peru and Jamaica, Estrategia and Construction Resource and Development
Collective are training more and more women to earn an income through production
of building materials and construction contracts. Estrategia is also partnering
with several institutions and the local government to create a housing fund for
low income families.
In
Turkey, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake the Foundation for the
Support of Women's Work set up revolving funds and enterprise loan facilities
for grassroots women in the disaster affected provinces. The Foundation went on
to market dolls made by earthquake affected women, through the Ministry for
Tourism. Because renters were not entitled to replacement housing grassroots
women created their own cooperatives to explore housing options. Cooperatives
used members' savings to acquire public land for construction of housing. By
2005 through a long, painful process the housing cooperatives were able to get
credit to start the construction of houses.
In
Maharashtra and Gujarat, India, Swayam Shikshan Prayog has supported the
women's groups to rganize federations of self-help groups to ensure that they
have access to emergency loans, enterprise loans and housing loans. Federations
are also working on scaling up community enterprises and piloting a health
mutual that functions like a health insurance programme in which communities
pool and share rather than transfer risk.
*
Creating women-managed, multi-purposes spaces Women-owned spaces have been used
by different network members in ways that address both practical and strategic
interests of grassroots women in disaster affected communities. After the
Marmara earthquake, with the support of Foundation for the Support of Women's
Work, women living in tent camps set up women and children's tents to organize
women around economic activities, distribute aid and improve living conditions
in the camps. Later, the women created women and children's centers in the
temporary pre-fabricated settlements and then took these centers to permanent
settlements. These spaces are used by women to organize themselves; to assess
children's needs and provide quality pre-school services for low income
families; to gather and disseminate information on the settlements, to
negotiate with officials, to run businesses and to undertake learning exchanges
with likeminded women's groups.
In
India after the Latur and the Kutch earthquakes, women's groups were supported
by Swayam Shikshan Prayog to learn earthquake safe construction by building and
supervising their own women's information centers. When women have their own
space or "office" where they can meet and organize their activities
it contributes to formalizing their status as key actors in community
development.
In
Sri Lanka, grassroots women's associations in the cities of Matara and Moratuwa
are being supported by Sevanatha Urban Resource Centre and Municipal Councils
along with support from GROOTS and International Center for Sustainable Cities
to participate in the design and management of community centers being
constructed as part of a post-tsunami reconstruction project
*
Directing aid Women from disaster-hit communities have played an active role in
monitoring and directing relief aid after disasters. After the Marmara
earthquake women in the tents observed that relief aid was not reaching those
who really needed it so they negotiated with camp managers to take charge of
aid distribution.
Women
from earthquake-hit Yogyakarta told Turkish women which kinds of assistance and
aid were useful and which were not. House repair materials, trauma healing and
counseling for children were useful according to Sri Rukhani, a woman leader from
Puchung Growong village. But she went on to say that once basic food and
shelter needs had been met people needed work and incomes. "A lot of
funding came at the same time, and all of it was for house construction. No one
wanted to provide livelihoods support." Women pointed out that timing of
aid was critical. "Plastic tents came when they were not needed. We had to
return them."
*
Managing community information Putting information in the hands of communities
strengthens their ability to negotiate with decision makers and develop
appropriate strategies.
In
Jamaica the Construction Resource Development Centre realized that existing
reconstruction programmes did not engage women or their communities, nor did it
help communities to understand how they might cope with future disasters. So
CRDC initiated vulnerability mapping in nine communities to help identify high
risk areas and strategize on how communities could reduce risk.
In
Turkey, grassroots women's organizations have conducted community surveys on
safe and unsafe housing and compared their findings to Government data to find
that many houses were wrongly classified.
ASHAA
women's health groups in Tamil Nadu have undertaken community surveys which
revealed the high health expenditures incurred by families. ASHAA women have
also disseminated information to their communities on how to access government
entitlements.
*
Monitoring and assessing resilience building programmes
In
partnership with the Huairou Commission, GROOTS International has evolved
DisasterWatch as a methodology for grassroots women to monitor and assess
disaster response programs. These community assessments are opportunities for
grassroots women to survey communities and analyse the extent to which
programmes respond to community priorities. Women's findings are then conveyed
to decision makers.
On
the second anniversary of the tsunami Huairou Commission and GROOTS
International sponsored a DisasterWatch in which a team comprising grassroots
leaders and professionals assessed the improvements and the problems
experienced by their communities. The findings of this assessment were
presented to District officials and National Disaster Management Authority,
Government of India.
*
Preparing emergency response teams
After
the tsunami Sanghamitra Service Society decided that it was essential to
prepare emergency task forces in the villages where they were working. SSS
decided to demonstrate a strategy for disaster mitigation and emergency
response in 22 of the 100 villages that they are working in. So far 4 emergency
response teams comprising men and women have been trained to manage early
warning and information, rescue, monitoring and distributing relief.
In
spite of the initial resistance to including women in these task forces, they make
up 50% of the village emergency task forces. Task force members from
Sanghamitra in Andhra Pradesh, traveled to tsunami affected Nagapattinam
district where they were requested by NGO Rural Organization for Social
Education (ROSE) to train community members to form a similar emergency task
force in their village. Task forces trained by Sanghamitra have also learned to
create contingency plans . But in addition to emergency preparedness
activities, communities are also undertaking other disaster mitigation
activities which include repairing cyclone shelters and planting mangroves to
preserve the coastal eco system.
*
Preparing tools and strategies for scaling up effective practice
Groots
International has a strong commitment to promoting peer learning processes as a
means of transferring knowledge and skills across grassroots groups. Over the
last year, as part of our efforts to prepare a network of community trainers on
resilience building GROOTS International in partnership with AJWS have been
supporting grassroots leaders from nine different organizations to identify
their skills and knowledge, prepare curriculum, tools and materials to train
other disaster-prone communities.
----------------------------
Naming the challenges
>
Mismatch between community needs and aid delivered, along with badly timed aid/
entitlements > Bureaucratc procedures for accessing support > Exclusive
focus on relief and inadequate attention to long term process of recovery and
rehabilitation > Corruption by NGOs, government, communities and donors >
No spaces, respect or requirement for communities to participate in decision
making. > Women do not participate equally in public decision-making and
implementation-concentration of women in the private sphere > No reliable
information available
Long
term strategies for sustaining efforts and leadership
>
Mobilizing resources and information to participate as equals in decision
making > Reviving or building community organizations > Establishing
democratic participation and decision making processes > Establishing public
centres by and for women > Reclaiming homes/land in traditional villages to
anchor the communities' abilities to participate in decision making (which
depends on their physical presence in their settlements). > Mobilizing youth
and educating children > Building relationships with NGO's and other actors
who can support communities to influence policy / decision- making and will
work with them over a long time.
Dispelling
myths
Here
are some common myths about women's participation in resilience building which
need to be dispelled.
>
Women are a vulnerable group.
While
men and women experience different kinds of vulnerabilities in the context of
natural disaster, putting women in the "vulnerable" category along
with children, elderly and disabled is misleading. In every disaster grassroots
women have played active roles to support their communities to cope with and
recover from disasters.
>
Grassroots women's approaches to resilience exclude men.
A
lot of resistance to gender equity stems from the belief that men will be
excluded. The fact is that grassroots women's efforts and aspirations are
centred around the wellbeing of their families and communities. Grassroots
women's priorities are clearly not exclusively women's concerns but community
issues such as secure housing, better incomes, improving quality of education,
health and sanitation in their communities.
>
"Community participation" means that women will automatically be
included.
Unless
there is a conscious effort to build women's confidence and capacities to
participate in community decision making they will remain at the periphery of
all development or risk reduction programmes.
>
Community consultations equals community participation.
-----------------------------------
SKILLS
AND KNOWLEDGE OFFERED BY COMMUNITY EXPERTS
Comite
de Emergencia Garifuna, Honduras
>
Organizing women to undertake disaster relief. > Sustainable agriculture
> Food security
Construction
Resource and Development Center, Jamaica > Building hurricane resistant
roofs. > Community risk mapping
Prevention
of river flooding (river groining) Estrategia, Peru
>
Production of earthquake-resistant building components > Construction of
earthquake resistant houses. > Strengthening the organizational capacity of
the grassroots women > Consciousness-raising, collection and dissemination
of information for community advocacy.
Sanghamitra
Service Society, Andhra Pradesh, India
>
Setting up emergency response teams > Undertaking contingency planning >
Repairing and maintaining cyclone shelters
Rural
Organization for Social Education, Tamil Nadu India
>
Setting up emergency task forces > Integrating village development
activities into the responsibilities of the Emergency Task Forces.
Aceh
and Yogyakarta, Urban Poor Link, Indonesia
>
Running temporary shelters and community kitchens > Community policing >
Supervising house construction > Composting
Social
support groups for women Foundation for the Support of Women's Work, Turkey
>
Confidence building and empowerment training > Setting up and managing
centres for women and children > Running community enterprises >
Negotiating with officials
Swayam
Shikshan Prayog (SSP), Tamil Nadu, India
>
Improving village health and sanitation > Reducing health expenditures >
Creating a village health fund > Accessing to government health services and
other basic services > Building linkages with village councils
Covenant
Centre for Development (CCD), Tamil Nadu India
>
Building federations of savings and credit groups to undertake community
enterprise > Taking women through each stage of federation building >
Improving health through herbal medicine > Linking community entrepreneurs
to markets > Improving health through herbal medicines
SHORT
TERM OPPORTUNITIES, LONG TERM STRATEGIES & CHALLENGES
At
our regional workshop in Indonesia to strengthen community trainers, community
leaders from disaster prone communities in Indonesia and Turkey analyzed their
stories to identify challenges, opportunities and long term strategies for
participation used by women and men from disaster-affected communities.
>
Entry points for collective action on practical needs after disaster > Food
security > Pooling and distributing available money and supplies >
Collective labour and sharing tools for house repair > Income generation
> Livelihoods > Health and well being > Child care and family support
> Protecting land and housing from encroachment > Restoring basic
services > Composting and waste recycling > Collecting information and
reclaiming settlements (village mapping, community needs assessment) >
Negotiations with officials
Community
consultations can be one element of community participation but meaningful
participation is about supporting community based organizations to design,
manage and evaluate resilience-building programmes on an ongoing basis.
-----------------------------------------------
What's wrong with existing resilience building programmes and policies Women
are seen as victims and beneficiaries not stakeholders.
............................................ No requirement for women's
participation or for community participation in decision making. Mismatch
between aid provided and community priorities. ............................................
Resilience building and risk reduction is de-linked from development programmes
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Risk reduction tends to focus
mainly on physical resilience and emergency response. ............................................
Professional experts and their expertise 'disappear" when projects end. .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grassroots women and disaster
prone communities are excluded from decision making processes ............................................
> How policy makers can make a difference
Allocate
resources and assign roles to grassrootswomen and their communities in
designing, implementing and assessing programmes.
............................................ Set standards for women's
participation in disaster risk reduction
............................................ Put resources, information in the
hands of grassroots women and enable them to take dirand identify priorities.
............................................ Design programmes that package
risk reduction with grassroots development priorities.
............................................ Broaden risk reduction to address
social, economic and political marginalization which make communities vulnerable.
............................................ Invest in building community
expertise. Get community trainers to refine and scale up effective practices.
............................................ Create forums for dialogue among
grassroots women and policy makers.
---------------------------------------------
THEMATIC PROGRAMME ON COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
--------------------------------------------- Honduras: -------- In 16 towns
affected by Hurricane Mitch on the northern coast of Honduras with Comite de
Emergencia Garifuna. To find out more contact Ana Lucy Bengochea or Suzanne
Shende at afro@hondutel.hn ---------------------------------------------
Jamaica
In
the hurricane-prone cities of St Thomas and Kingston in Jamaica, with
Construction Resource and Development Centre. To find out more contact Carmen
Griffiths at Deav_will@yahoo.com
---------------------------------------------
Peru
In
earthquake-prone low-income neighborhoods in Lima, Peru, with Estrategia and
Mujeres Unidas Para Un Pueblo Mejor. To find out more contact Marilu Sanchez at
marilush@terra.com.pe --------------------------------------------- Indonesia
In
earthquake-affected Yogyakarta and Tsunami affected Aceh with Urban Poor Link
Indonesia. To find out more contact Wardah Hafidz at Upc@centrin.net.id
---------------------------------------------
Andhra Pradesh, India:
In
cyclone-prone Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh State, southeastern India, with
the Sanghamitra Services Society; Emergency Task forces. To find out more contact
Mr,S.Sivaji at: Sanghamitra.org@gmail.com
---------------------------------------------
Gujarat,
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, India
In
earthquake-affected areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra with Sakhi Women's
Federations; and Tsunami-affected Tamil Nadu with ASHAA groups supported by
Swayam Shikshan Prayog. For more information please contact P.Chandran at
sspinfo@gmail.com --------------------------------------------- Tamil Nadu,
India
In
drought-prone and tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu with Covenant Centre for
Development. For more information please contact V.C. Nadarajan at
nadarajan.vc@gmail.com --------------------------------------------- Tamil
Nadu, India
In
tsunami-affected Nagapattinam District with Rural Organization for Social Education.
For more information please contact G. Ahila / Karthik at
roseweman@rediffmail.com --------------------------------------------- Turkey
In
earthquake-affected Adapazari, Izmit and Duzce in Marmara Region, Turkey, with
Foundation for the Support of Women's Work who partner with women's
cooperatives. To find out more write to Sengul Akcar at sakcar@tnn.net
--------------------------------------------- Sri Lanka
Low
income communities in tsunami hit cities Matara and Moratuwa with Sevanatha
Urban Resource Center. To find out more write to K.Jayaratane at
Kayjay5939@yahoo.com or Vajira Pathirana at oshadhi@sltnet.lk
--------------------------------------------- Focal Point for Thematic
Programme on Community Resilience is located in Mumbai. To find out more
contact Prema Gopalan, sspindia@vsnl.net or Suranjana Gupta at
Suranjanagroots@aol.com --------------------------------------------- GROOTS
International
GROOTS
is an acronym for Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood.
GROOTS International is building a global movement of rural and urban
grassroots women's groups who are improving quality of life in poor,
marginalized communities in the South and North through bottom-up, pro-poor,
socially just, pluralistic solutions. GROOTS International is committed to the
empowerment of grassroots women to:
•
Develop their communities using pro-poor socially just, equitable, policies and
solutions • Advance governmental and institutional accountability to grassroots
women • Strengthen women's leadership to access and transform power at
different levels • Bridge the local and global by bringing grassroots analysis,
solutions and voices to local, national, regional and global decision making.
*
GROOTS International is a member network of the Huairou Commission.
Global
Secretariat is located in New York. To find out more write to Global
Facilitator,Sandy Schilen at Grootsss@aol.com
GROOTS
INTERNATIONAL, June 2007
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