Women, on every score, fall far behind.
No solution to poverty can endure without the full participation of women: They make up half the people on Earth.
To achieve that goal—to end poverty—we need to address discrimination and the uneven balance of power between men and women. At Oxfam, we support opportunities for women and girls to change the circumstances of their lives. We help them claim their rights, live free from violence, earn a decent income, get an education, become entrepreneurs, and make their voices heard. Guiding us is our belief in basic human rights, which includes the conviction that women—like men—have the capability to make a profound difference in the lives of their families, their communities, and their nations.
]]>That’s the message from Oxfam’s Sisters on the Planet Climate Leaders Summit. Held in Washington, DC, on International Women’s Day, the event brought together 94 women leaders from 33 US states—plus “climate witnesses” from Mississippi, Peru, Uganda, and Senegal—to honor women who are tackling climate change at the community level. In an effort to bring women’s voices to the forefront, these leaders met with 125 members of Congress and officials from the Obama administration, where they called for US climate legislation that helps poor people adapt to the crisis.
Environmental justice advocate Majora Carter delivered the keynote address at the summit. Carter is president of The Majora Carter Group, LLC, a consultancy specializing in environmental justice and sustainable economic development, as well as host of The Promised Land on NPR and the Sundance Channel’s Eco-Heroes.
In an exclusive interview with Oxfam, Carter talked about poverty here and abroad, the need for climate change adaptation, and why women can lead the way in coming up with solutions.
Oxfam: Why did you get involved with Oxfam and the Sisters on the Planet initiative?
Majora Carter: The similarities between people living in poverty anywhere—including the "developed" world—are very often greater than similarities between rich and poor in the same country. It mostly boils down to inequality within societies, and I am very familiar with what that looks like in the US. I want to learn more from the solutions that are being developed elsewhere, where different conditions have inspired creativity; and see how our work can play out in scenarios that may look different, but are really quite similar just under the surface.
How does climate change affect women in particular, especially women living in poverty? How can women lead in coming up with solutions?
Decades of dirty energy infrastructure … has been disproportionately burdening poor people in various ways. One way in particular is the public health of children, and care for these kids almost always falls on women—a mom, a grandmother, an older sister. The same holds true in places where water is scarce—women are the ones who have to travel further to transport it back home.
The good news is that because women are so in touch with the effects of climate change and its causes, they are in an excellent position to devise local solutions. But we have to use this unfortunate moment that history has cast our way. It is easy to shine a light on the mistakes of the past and where they have delivered us. We can't be afraid to use this position and contrast past practices against new ideas. The old arguments of inertia which say: "that's how it's always been done before..." are very vulnerable at the moment. Women (who have been excluded from any of the decision-making processes that brought us here) represent the possibility of new vision—but only when they realize that command is taken, not given.
During the summit, “climate witnesses” from places like Uganda told firsthand stories about how climate change has affected their lives. Why should Americans support their efforts to fight back against the crisis?
The dire situations that the "climate witnesses" described—in terms of literally losing their ability to support themselves, and in some cases, their land—represent a clear moral concern. However, my personal experience growing up in the South Bronx has made me skeptical about the strength of moral arguments in our society. It's usually the economic argument that carries the day.
How we embrace climate adaptation here, and the practices we influence abroad, will affect our global economic systems in many ways. … All the choices we make as a society can be thought through a little better than we have been; but putting the environmental equality of all people at the forefront of any process will guarantee better climate adaptation and better economic health for everyone. …
Climate change mitigation strategies are important too, and will have positive or negative effects on our economic health as well—depending on whether we lead, or back into the issues as they become impossible to ignore. We want to lead, even if it looks like it costs more up front; the advantages of leadership outweigh disadvantages of playing catch-up in matters big and small. I am proud to be associated with Oxfam and its very pro-leadership stance.
]]>The ambassadors' message: Worldwide, it's women who often bear the brunt of the effects of climate change, including more frequent and severe floods, droughts, and hurricanes. The US must invest now in adaptation projects, like elevated flood-proof houses and drought-resistant seeds, to help women and families build their resilience to these new and heightened risks.
"It's important to talk about the cost-effective nature of investing in the world's most vulnerable populations, both for their stability and for global security," said Sisters on the Planet Ambassador the Hon. Barbara Lawton, lieutenant governor of Wisconsin. "Whether it's women and families in the US, in Sudan, or in the Arctic Circle... our destinies are linked."
Joining Lawton on the Congressional visits were Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency; Elizabeth Becker, journalist and author; Rev. Dr. Miriam Burnett, president of the Resource and Promotion of Health Alliance, Inc.; Dr. Kristie Ebi, human health author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Rachel Larson, executive director of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility; Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change; and Mary Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters.
Oxfam's Judith Brackley, a member of the event planning team, said the participants reflect a diverse group of more than 25 Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors, including business leaders, artists, university presidents, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. (Read a full list of Sisters on the Planet ambassadors.)
"Though they come from different backgrounds, these are all women of influence, who can speak on behalf of women around the world—many of whom have no voice or access to seats of power," said Brackley.
As a result of the ambassadors' visits, 10 members of Congress agreed to sponsor an upcoming bipartisan Congressional resolution on women and climate change. Others pledged to support international adaptation funding in future US climate legislation.
The ambassadors particularly targeted their efforts to women leaders. Representative Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, joined them for a question and answer session over dinner, while Representative Doris O. Matsui, Democrat of California, signed on as the newest Sisters on the Planet Ambassador.
Brackley said the ambassadors will play an ongoing role as spokeswomen for Oxfam's climate change campaign. Many came away from the event with new connections to one another and new ideas for spreading the word among constituents.
Burnett, a physician and minister, talked about Sisters on the Planet the following Sunday morning—International Women's Day—on her satellite radio talk show targeting the African-American community.
"When I look at climate change and poverty—all the things Sisters on the Planet talks about—I've seen that in the work I've been doing here in the US. When I see the droughts that are occurring where they use trickle irrigation, and I turn around and look at drought in farmland in middle Georgia, I see common ground," Burnett said.
Join the effort: Take the Sisters on the Planet pledge.
]]>They were featured speakers on a week-long Oxfam America tour, which passed through five US cities on its way from New Mexico to Missouri. Inspired by Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet initiative—and supported by groups like CARE and the League of Women Voters—the tour focused on the human face of climate change here and abroad, with an emphasis the ways the US can help vulnerable communities survive the crisis.
"Pollution, greenhouse gases, they don't respect boundaries," said Voré Gana Seck, the speaker from Senegal. "This is a global problem that needs global solutions."
Sharon Hanshaw, executive director of Coastal Women for Change and one of Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet, spoke about her personal losses from Hurricane Katrina, as well as the storm's lasting effects on her home town of Biloxi, Mississippi.
Speaking at the Kansas City, Missouri, public library, Hanshaw explained that it's not just past hurricanes that concern her community, but the ones ahead, which are predicted to intensify. "This year we've had four hurricanes in the last six months," she said. "Gustav was called a dud, but it still flooded our houses."
In Biloxi, she said, hurricanes not only wreak physical damage, but also add to the burdens of people already among America's poorest.
"Times were hard pre-Katrina, and now it's even worse; prices have gone up," said Hanshaw. "We still have people living in trailers, no healthcare, no childcare, no public library. We don't need a handout from the government. We need infrastructure to help our community live again."
Seck, Executive Director of Green Senegal and president of the international NGO coalition CONGAD, highlighted the common ground between Senegal and the Gulf Coast. In both places, she said, the poorest families are the ones to bear the burden.
At an event at the Omaha, Nebraska, public library, Seck compared the effects of climate change to those of a war: "You can't produce enough food, you can't harvest. You don't have enough money. You can't send your kids to school."
For local farming families, she said, a decrease in rainfall means that staple crops like rice, millet, and vegetables often fail to reach maturity, leaving families with less food to eat and fewer extra crops to sell. To earn a better living, some of these farmers migrate to already-crowded cities like Dakar, where floods and poor sanitation are leading to an increase in water-borne diseases like cholera.
Others join the ranks of the "climate refugees": teens and young adults who leave their villages for Spain or the Canary Islands, looking to earn money to send to their families back home. Hundreds of these young people have died while attempting ocean crossings in small, fragile boats.
"In Algeciras, Spain, there is a burial ground called the "Cemetery of the Unknown People," said Seck. "These are our environmental refugees. They are the unknown."
Despite these hardships, both speakers' organizations are leading efforts to help their communities survive the crisis.
"The first thing we have to do is be resilient," said Hanshaw, whose group distributes hurricane preparedness kits—containing fresh water, food, insurance papers, and flashlights—to Biloxi seniors and families. They're also offering affordable child care options to help women in the community return to work.
Hanshaw's organization also trains local women to go to Washington, DC, and "tell the stories that are not being told." Their message to legislators: "We're still here. We're going to be here. And climate change affects all of us."
Seck's group teaches Senegalese farmers new techniques that help crops grow in a drier climate, like drip irrigation systems and faster-maturing seeds. Seck showed photos of the successful projects in action: first a riot of green seedlings, then tall plants in orderly rows, flourishing beneath a wide blue sky.
So far, she said, these innovative methods are only in place in a few villages. But with the support of wealthier countries like the US, projects like these could help farmers throughout the region.
Many audience members at these events signed up for Oxfam's online climate change action team, which provides ways to directly influence US legislators on the issue.
For some, the speakers' words brought a change in perspective. "I came here expecting to hear about Africa, but I didn't expect to hear Sharon's story, right in our backyard," said Lillian Pardo, a retired physician who attended the Kansas City speaking event. "You don't see this on the news."
Andrew Jameton, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, was the last to speak in a question and answer session in Omaha. "I want to fight this, and a lot of people feel the same way, but it will be a tough century," he said, adding that, because of the speakers' words, "I'm not optimistic—but I'm hopeful."
]]>This tree once shaded Hanshaw's driveway and mailbox—but now it marks the place where her house used to stand, before Hurricane Katrina struck Biloxi, MS.
As cars rumble past, Hanshaw maps out the landscape of memory. "That's where we found my daughter's bed, afterward," she says, indicating a red SUV a few rows away. "This was my backyard. This was the front porch."
Hanshaw was out of town on August 29, 2005, when Katrina's winds drove the Gulf of Mexico into her neighborhood. Thirteen feet of water crashed through the streets that day, filling her house with mud, scattering her belongings, tearing the bumper off her car. The waters swept inland to downtown Biloxi, flooding the hairdressing business she'd run for 21 years. Months later, all the homes on her block were bulldozed to build this parking lot for the Imperial Palace casino.
Hanshaw says the storm brought her not just destruction, however, but also transformation. As executive director of Oxfam America partner organization Coastal Women for Change (CWC), she has turned her losses into strength—by becoming an advocate and role model for others, her fellow survivors.
"This is a left-behind community," Hanshaw says emphatically of East Biloxi, the close-knit, predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood where she was born and raised.
You only have to walk the streets here to see what she means. Many houses in this once-vibrant neighborhood now stand abandoned, their boarded-up windows turning a blank face to the street. Some damaged homes, like Hanshaw's, were razed after the storm, leaving behind only vacant lots. Others are flanked by boxy white trailers, where families live cramped together as they await government grants, insurance settlements, or other resources they need to finish rebuilding.
A few restored houses gleam with new paint, "For Rent" signs propped up on the lawn. But rents have nearly doubled since the storm, and good jobs are hard to come by—so many displaced residents can't afford to move back home.
"We need affordable housing—not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Hanshaw. "But the message right now is, "if you're not rich, get back."
Hanshaw points out that Biloxi's beachfront casinos and wealthier neighborhoods began rebuilding soon after the waters receded. But somehow those funds never reached this mostly low- and middle-income neighborhood.
Today, she can recite a litany of things lost and not yet replaced: The public library. Funds for small businesses. Elder care programs. Playgrounds for low-income kids.
By training women, people of color, and low-income people to make their voices heard in the Gulf Coast recovery process, CWC aims to give people the means to speak out about these and other pressing community needs.
The group has convened a public forum to discuss rebuilding efforts with Biloxi's mayor and city councilors. Several CWC members have since been appointed to the mayor's planning commission. CWC has also sent delegations to Jackson, MS, and Washington, DC, to urge legislators to provide more affordable housing for people left homeless by the hurricanes.
Until they see results, Hanshaw says, they will continue to push for change at the local, state, and federal levels. "This is our community," she says. "We want it back the way it was&mdsah;or better."
Hanshaw's personal transformation—"from cosmetologist to activist," as she calls it—began three months after Katrina. She was shuttling between relatives' houses and a FEMA trailer, which gave off formaldehyde fumes that made it hard to breathe. Though more people fled Biloxi every day, she says she couldn't abandon her lifelong home.
Then a friend asked her to join local women who were meeting together wherever they could: a funeral home, the local NAACP headquarters, a church. The women talked about rebuilding, both their community and their lives. "Those meetings were part of our recovery, emotionally," says Hanshaw.
Among the women was Oxfam's Safiya Daniels, who encouraged them to voice their concerns about the pace of recovery in East Biloxi. Equipped with training and startup funds from Oxfam's Gulf Coast recovery program, the women formed CWC in early 2006. Soon after, Hanshaw was appointed the group's executive director.
These days, about 20 core CWC members still come together at regular evening meetings. They still borrow space—a beige cinderblock room in the Church of the Redeemer, a few blocks from the waterfront—but their discussions now center on community outreach and upcoming advocacy opportunities. Members of Oxfam's Gulf Coast staff often join in to provide advice.
Hanshaw believes that all women in the community should be able to attend the meetings. With prices rising at the pump, and few options for public transit, she'll even buy members gas cards so they can afford to drive over.
"I'm going to train you if it kills me," she says, explaining her passion to empower those around her. "You're all going to be powerful women."
Advocacy remains at the heart of CWC's activities. But as the group evolved, members realized that in addition to advocating solutions, they had to create their own.
"We find ourselves still doing direct service," Hanshaw says. "That's not our mission, but we see there's no housing going up here that's affordable, no library, no activity center, or anything for the children. ... So I have to do what's in my face right now."
Among other activities, CWC founded its own in-home child care program to address a shortage of affordable day care. It sponsors senior appreciation dinners and computer training for East Biloxi's elderly residents. And it's taking steps to help locals prepare for the next, inevitable storm.
Meanwhile, Hanshaw speaks out about the fight against climate change in Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet and served as an official timekeeper at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. But if you ask her what she's most proud of about her work, she'll say that it's "women stepping up," whether in Biloxi city council meetings or on the national stage.
"Throughout this whole process," she notes, "we've created more leaders."
With additional reporting by Steve Greene.
]]>But now Hanshaw, and a growing number of other women in the Gulf Coast community, have a new foundation from which to begin rebuilding part of their lives: Coastal Women for Change, or CWC, a fledgling group of newborn activists determined have a say in the recovery of their neighborhoods.
Whatever the 2006 hurricane season brings, CWC may serve as a buffer to additional hardship. It has taught many of the women that each of them has a voice, and those voices count—individually and collectively.
"Our mission is to empower these women with knowledge of what they can do," said Hanshaw, the group's new director. "It's unlimited. You can build. You can go back to school. You can call your local officials. You can talk to them. They're there for us."
Now numbering about 25 regular members, with a core group of 10, CWC was launched with the help of Safiya Daniels, a community development specialist for Oxfam America, who has been working chiefly in Biloxi and Gulfport.
"One big difference that I saw between these two cities was the existence of organized community groups," said Daniels. "I realized that outside of the churches, Biloxi had none. I also noticed there was very little institutionalized female leadership in Biloxi."
Daniels also worried that there seemed to be few community gatherings in Biloxi to discuss what direction the city was taking as it began recovering from Katrina. Long-range community planning was not on anyone's neighborhood radar screen.
"This was a dangerous situation," said Daniels. "Everyone else was making a plan: casino developers, condo developers, and the city, but there was very little evidence of broad community participation."
She knew the concern was there—"in every community there are lots of concerned women who want a vibrant, healthy, and safe community for their families to live in"—but how to turn that interest into action was the missing piece. So, Daniels called a meeting.
"I brought a group of women together to talk about what was happening in their community, what issues and problems they faced, and how these could be addressed," said Daniels.
That first meeting grew into a series of sessions which blossomed into action, spawned weekly gatherings, attracted new members, and finally gave birth to an official group with a name and stated mission. Its goal is this: "to make a difference in our communities through securing and revitalizing our neighborhoods." Information sharing is the critical tool in achieving that end.
"I don't want people to be left out," said Hanshaw. "I want to give them knowledge. Knowledge is power."
Knowledge starts with asking questions, and one of the first events CWC sponsored was a Biloxi community forum to which it invited the mayor, city councilors, and members of the city planning department. Questions abounded—about flood elevations mapped out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), about affordable housing, about displaced people. Nearly 200 residents showed up for the forum.
Attendees not only got some answers, some of them learned a deeper lesson as well.
"Democracy works only if people make it work," said Daniels. "And we do that by holding people accountable. There possibly has never been a time during the mayor's 13-year tenure that he found himself in such a position, being watched and held accountable by this particular community, and in such a public way."
Asking questions is the first step. Having a say in the answers is the next step. Right away, CWC members sought seats on a planning commission formed by Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway. Called Reviving the Renaissance Committee, it was given 90 days to come up with a plan for the city's recovery.
Five CWC members have been weighing in on matters of finance, education, land use, and affordable housing—the subcommittees for which they signed up. And people are beginning to listen to CWC's opinions.
"We are in the paper every week," said Hanshaw, adding that she gets the sense she is even making some of the powerbrokers nervous.
"They try to turn their heads when I come up," she said. "Especially the developers. They don't want to talk to me. They know where I stand."
For Cass Woods, working with CWC has given her a direct link to her community, and that link is allowing her to make things better all around.
"It makes me feel good to help someone," said Woods, who has been living in a government issue trailer—the size of a matchbox, she said—parked in her back yard for months. "That's what has helped me get through my loss."
With a $30,000 seed grant from the 21st Century Foundation, CWC will be able to pay Hanshaw a salary, purchase office supplies, and begin to look ahead at how to fund itself into the future.
Meanwhile, the organization is undertaking a new task: a survey of East Biloxi to find out the childcare needs of the community's residents. To renew its license, a local day care organization is being required to assess the need for its services in the area.
"This is our first project," said Hanshaw. "Another accomplishment under our belts."
And it's just the kind of project Daniels had a hunch a group like CWC could offer the community.
"The needs of the community will drive what CWC takes on," said Daniels. With those needs being constant—as they are in every community—Daniels expects the new organization to have a long and productive life.
"It's going to stand on its own. I am confident of that," she said. "I could see it truly growing into a coastwide organization."
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