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Recap: The Gender Transformative Land & Environment Justice Learning Exchange
Empowering women and protecting their rights to land, environment, and climate can lead to significant positive changes within communities. Despite the potential for this impact, achieving fair and equal outcomes has been a challenge. However, the Gender Transformative Land and Environmental Justice Learning Exchange, organized by the Grassroots Justice Network, aims to change that.
As the Grassroots Justice Network, we heeded the call from our members who were keen to understand and learn how to implement strategies for deepening their gender-transformative, land, and environmental justice work.
Network Members at the Gender Learning Exchange
A total of 36 members representing 18 organizations from 15 countries took part in the Learning Exchange. We held a successful 3-month Learning Exchange that included four, 2-hour virtual sessions and a one-week in-person convening in the lush green Bvumba Hills in Zimbabwe.
We explored the following questions:
- To strengthen land and environmental justice, what are key gender transformative strategies for knowing, using, and shaping the law?
- How can legal empowerment help address the gendered impacts of land, environmental, and climate injustice?
- What are good practices for organizations that seek to adopt gender-transformative legal empowerment programming?
We engaged in insightful group discussions at the Exchange
What we learned
- The discussion explored the definition of gender transformative approaches and how we can integrate this approach into legal empowerment. Some of the definitions highlighted that, gender transformative approaches challenge and question existing gender norms and biases that harm individuals based on their gender identity. They also seek to shift power dynamics that limit women to specific roles, encouraging broader participation in decision-making. The session included insights on how legal empowerment can change culture, illustrated through video case studies from Sierra Leone, Honduras, and Kenya.
- Good practices that can be adopted by organizations that seek to adopt gender-transformative legal empowerment programming. We explored and exchanged strategies which included analysing existing gender norms within our organizations and how we can advocate for policies, systems, and structures that promote gender transformation.
This Spectrum can help organizations reflect on their current work.
- Gender transformative security and protection: We explored our biggest gendered security and protection concerns at an individual, community, and organizational level. We learned that all of these are intertwined and essential for us to feel safe while carrying out our work.
- How to respond to and be aware of the mental health needs of the community members we work with. We explored the impacts of gender roles on mental health and learned how addressing mental health through a gender-transformative approach can dismantle harmful stereotypes and provide holistic support to community members.
We visited mining areas to learn from women who experience land and environmental injustices. These empowered women shared how they use legal empowerment to fight gender inequality, helping them become part of the decision-makers in their communities. One success story was a woman who overcame gender bias and was elected as a Councillor, becoming a key decision-maker in her community.
The exchange fostered relationships and mentorships, and with funding from the Legal Empowerment Fund, participants will apply their new knowledge in their work.
We had one on one discussions where network members exchanged and shared insights on various topics
We also had a great time on our fun trek together
How you can get involved
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Look out for our upcoming Course on Gender Transformative, Land and Environmental Justice as well as our new Publication and Working Group.
August 5, 2024 | Ruth Nzembi
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