Our enterprise advances constructive environmental practices by empowering people, especially women, to become environmental and community stewards. Over the years, the enterprise has been involved in strengthening the roles grassroots women play in community resource management. We have worked for years to mobilize disadvantaged women, especially in Kaduna State, Nigeria, to address a number of environmentally destructive cultural practices related to water and food supply, energy services, natural resource access, education, and waste management issues.
Our programs deliver environmental awareness, training, and advocacy on climate change, conservation, energy, solid waste management, food and water security. We also teach peace and conflict resolution, leadership education, financial literacy, micro entrepreneurship, empowerment 2.0 (human agency), citizen journalism, and digital empowerment. We lobby individuals, governmental and intergovernmental bodies, NGOs, community-based organizations, and other individuals and corporate organizations to develop environmentally sustainable initiatives that socially and economically empower women and young people.
Our work is key to promoting environmental sustainability, women’s empowerment and gender equality, poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods, peace building, and human agency in Nigeria as well as across Africa. We have succeeded in providing information, knowledge, skills, and creating local and global opportunities for the women and young people we work with.
HOW WE DO WHAT WE DO?
- Project planning, development, and implementation.
- Environmental education and advocacy, including the introduction of environmental clubs in schools and other educational institutions.
- Organizing workshops and seminars.
- Dissemination of environmental information through print and electronic media, as well as the use of information, educational and communication materials (e.g., handbills, posters, stickers, etc.).
- Research, community organizing, mobilization, and sensitization.
- Organizing and participating in environmental sanitation exercises, addressing environmental health issues.
- Conflict resolution and peace initiatives.
- Networking, collaboration, and partnerships.
- Promotion of tourism.
- Consultancy.
WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO?
Drought, deforestation, erosion, floods, climate change, water shortages, food scarcity, poverty, and patriarchal traditions force grassroots women and girls to work harder to access and secure natural resources. Women’s historic disadvantages (restricted access to resources and information, and limited power in decision-making) make them most vulnerable to the impacts of environmental and security challenges.
They typically face attitudes, systems, and practices that overlook or undermine their position, needs, concerns, rights, roles, and responsibilities in environmental protection and natural resource stewardship. It is common to find women who do all the farm work but are denied the right to own the land they till day-in and day-out. Women are the primary water fetchers, yet they are the thirstiest and most burdened by the search for clean and safe water points, with little say in intervention planning. They spend productive hours searching for firewood and inhaling toxic fumes from the fireplace, yet they are rarely considered in conservation strategies.
Women often become prisoners of daylight due to lack of access to toilets. Vital statistics illustrate these challenges: A study of 88 water and sanitation projects in 15 countries by the International Water and Sanitation Centre in 2012 found that projects designed with full participation of women are more effective and sustainable. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), smoke from firewood used for cooking is the third greatest killer of women and children in Nigeria.
- For women and girls, collecting water and firewood reduces time for family care and education. In insecure areas, it exposes them to violence and attack. UNICEF estimates that in Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours annually just fetching water.
FUNDING
- Individuals and corporate organizations.
- Donors, grants, and partners.
- Promissory and fiscal sponsors.
- Scholarships and fellowships.
- Crowdfunding.
- Others that uphold the principles of WISE (Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment).