My first blog post for CARE India, where I've been working as a communications intern for a little over 2 months now.
The Earth Day Network is mobilizing a “Billion Acts of Green” to mark this year’s Earth Day in hopes of increasing consciousness about the importance of sustainable practices. It is the largest environmental service and advocacy campaign in the world and has already registered more than a 100 billion acts by individuals, corporations and organisations. But even as this movement musters commitments from large segments of society, one particular segment; a more invisible and seemingly powerless one, struggles to grapple with the realities of climate change.
Increasingly, climate change discussions are gravitating towards the larger issue of gender disparity, and with good reason. Women and children in poor communities have been recognised as the most vulnerable groups as they lack the resources to manage the consequences of the impending climate crisis. Women face other historic disadvantages including limited access to decision making and economic assets which make matters worse. Their lack of theoretical knowledge about climate change does little to negate the inevitable and extensive adversities that follow.
For centuries, rural women in India have had the responsibility of providing water and food to their family. This culturally propagated role has played an important part in perpetuating gender inequality. In the face of severe water scarcity, the daily grind of getting water and keeping home fires burning has become an even more fatiguing task for rural women everywhere. Moreover, it has pulled children, especially girls, out of schools. The Human Development Report (HDR) of 2007-08 revealed that Indian women born during floods in the 1970s were 19% less likely to have attended primary school. Aside from this, climate change has resulted in serious health crises of various kinds in regions where health care delivery is almost non-existent. This is where CARE and its ongoing interventions come in.
Even with extensive global emissions reductions, CARE knows that the impacts of climate change will be felt by poor communities for many years to come. The World Food Programme estimates that globally, climate change will be responsible for an increase of 10-20% of people at risk of hunger by 2050. Of these, almost all people at risk of climate-related hunger will be in developing countries and the majority of the world’s hungry and undernourished people will continue to be women and children.
CARE believes that though rural women are susceptible, they are certainly not defenceless or powerless. On the contrary, women have shown great determination and strength while facing the challenges of climate change. They have helped not only their families but entire communities cope better with lifestyle and occupational changes by proactively adopting alternative practices. One way CARE helps women adapt to climate change is by working with them to diversify their livelihoods, especially when farming alone can no longer support their families.
Around the world, women are joining together as agents of change in their communities and CARE interventions have proven to be instrumental in facilitating this movement or change.
