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Cities And Urban Change

/Cities And Urban Change

 

10 04, 2023

Architecture as Activism: Yasmeen Lari’s Eco-Feminist Work

2023-10-17T15:42:57-04:00Tags: |

Yasmeen Lari, a Pakistani woman, has dedicated her life to intersecting architecture and Ecofeminism. She developed the Barefoot Architecture Project to address social, economic, and gender inequities that exist in rural Pakistan through conscious architecture. Due to overarching gender roles, many women play a large role in cooking, cleaning, and caregiving for their families and community. Lari developed the Pakistan Chula, an elevated, cost-effective and smokeless stove made with local mud and plaster. The Pakistan Chula has lowered risk for burns or lung conditions, minimized potential for flood damage, and has brought women dignity while preparing traditional food. In addition to co-constructing the chulahs, Lari also trained the women to create bricks, tiles, and flood-resistant houses using local materials. This has empowered local women to not only socialize and participate more in the community, but also increase their economic stability. Photo Credit: Copyright Yasmeen Lari/Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

7 01, 2023

Shaping History: The Impact of Women Architects in Post-Colonial South Asia

2023-10-17T15:54:56-04:00Tags: |

Four South Asian women architects have been instrumental in reshaping their communities after their countries gained independence from colonial rule under Britain. Pakistan’s first woman architect, Yaseem Lari focused her architectural designs on postcolonialism, gender, climate change, and community participation as she had a role in the design for affordable housing following post-partition Pakistan. Marina Tabassum, a Bangladeshi woman also contributing to the design of low-income housing (post-partition) that considered river erosion, poverty, and preservation of local resources. In India, Pravina Mehta elevated egalitarian values, Indian culture, and social justice in her housing designs, after seeing the wealth disparities amongst her diverse community. Finally, Minette de Silva, from Sri Lanka introduced critical regionalism which sought to balance regional needs with the local ecosystem, resulting in modern buildings that used traditional building techniques and raw materials. Marina, Yaseem, Pravina, and Minette’s contributions have shaped South Asian society with architecture that brings forward the intersection of gender and the environment. Photo Credit: Copyright Randhir Singh 

22 11, 2022

How Floating Wetlands Are Helping to Clean Up Urban Waters

2023-12-07T17:35:07-05:00Tags: |

As urban waters continue to face increasing pollution and degradation, researchers are installing artificial floating wetlands to combat the issue. Susan Cosier, an environmental and scientific journalist, reports on how these efforts are playing out in Chicago’s rivers. Instead of the uniform steel walls that usually surround urban river edges, Urban Rivers, a Chicago-based nonprofit, is replacing them with floating wetlands to recreate a natural river system. The floating islands host a diverse selection of native flora which help to filter contaminants and capture chemicals and metals in the water. The removal of surplus agricultural nutrients prevents harmful algal blooms that block out crucial oxygen and sunlight from reaching aquatic life. One researcher found that one acre of floating wetland is able to absorb the nutrient pollution produced by 7 to 15 acres of urban development. These wetlands also provide habitat for other plants to grow and aid invertebrates like mollusks and crustaceans in repopulating in the Chicago River. These efforts are multiplying globally, with projects taking place across the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and the United States. While these wetlands have incredible environmental benefits, researchers emphasize that they are just one tool that must be accompanied by other efforts to regulate and reduce pollution at the source. Photo Credit: Dave Burk/SOM

28 10, 2022

Cities aren’t designed for women. Here’s what’s needed next

2024-02-15T12:40:26-05:00Tags: , |

This article discusses the UN Development Program’s report, Designing Cities that Work for Women, which cites four critical areas of improvement to better suit women’s needs. These include: safety and security, justice and equity, health and wellbeing, and enrichment and fulfillment. The article further elaborates on these areas of improvement by discussing examples of changes needed to improve cities for women. The first is increasing female voices in leadership roles. This includes seeking out female viewpoints to inform city planning decisions, as well as using gender-disaggregated data. The second example is incorporating the celebration of female achievement within cities. This section cited how only 2-3% of city statues portray women. If improved, this can aid in women feeling a sense of belonging within their city. The third example is to improve safety in public spaces and on public transport through the use of design, violence prevention laws, education, and technology. Lastly, the fourth example confronts the need for increased water and sanitation, as the collection of water is vastly the responsibility of women and girls globally, with about one-third of women lacking access to safe toilets. The article closes by restating the importance of redesigning cities holistically and to increase the role that under-represented communities have in urban development.  Photo Credit: Unsplash/João Ferrão

8 07, 2022

If we want to build truly sustainable cities, we need to think about how women use energy and space

2024-02-15T12:41:53-05:00Tags: , |

In this article, Rihab Khalid discusses her research on how cities are gendered and how men and women use energy differently in Pakistan, India, Nigeria, and Ghana, finding three important components to energy usage differences. The first component of Khalid’s research finds that there is a gap in gender-specific data that tells us how and when women use energy. The second component is that women are underrepresented within the energy field and account for as little as 22% of energy workers. Lastly, even when energy policies attempt to be gender neutral, they still often marginalize women’s energy needs. For example, Khalid cites power outages as having a greater impact on a woman’s daily routine as opposed to a man’s, as women still do the vast majority of unpaid domestic work. Furthermore, Khalid discusses the importance of including gender in urban planning and development as women face numerous difficulties in urban spaces, such as not having access to or feeling safe on public transit. Khalid closes by emphasizing the connection between energy, gender, and space and how their interactions must be considered in order to create better sustainable cities. Photo Credit: N/A

26 05, 2022

The War on my Homeland offers a real chance to save the planet

2023-03-29T12:27:51-04:00Tags: |

Svitlana Romanko is a Ukrainian climate activist, environmental lawyer, and mother writing from the frontlines of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Romanko explains that Russia’s invasion is funded and fueled by the coal, oil, and gas industries that also drive the climate crisis. Before the war, Romanko helped the Ukrainian city Vinnytsia create a roadmap to implement the European Green Deal to work towards climate neutrality. While the conflict has stopped those plans, Romanko points out that the war presents an opportunity for Europe to transition away from fossil fuels, both to stop the Russian invasion and for global climate justice. Photo credit: Olga Gordeeva/EyeEm via Getty images

17 05, 2022

Pollution responsible for one in six deaths across planet, scientists warn

2023-03-29T12:28:34-04:00Tags: |

Pollution is killing 9 million people a year. Toxic air and contaminated water and soil is an existential threat to human and planetary health. Increased fossil fuel burning, rising population numbers and unplanned urbanization have increased the numbers of deaths from pollution. Death by pollution disproportionately occurs in low and middle income countries. But pollution crosses borders and thus requires an international response. Pollution, the climate crisis and the destruction of wildlife and nature are interconnected and addressing one will benefit the others. Photo credit: Rupak de Chowdhuri/Reuters

15 03, 2022

The Lady With The Audiometer: Environmentalist Sumaira Abdulali’s Meticulous Fight Against Noise Pollution | Feminism in India

2024-09-16T10:57:53-04:00Tags: |

This article highlights the work of Sumaira Abdulali, an environmental activist from India known for her campaigns on noise pollution and sand mining. Abdulali frequently has an audiometer in her hand as she travels around Mumbai, taking note of how excessively high the noise reaches, especially during festivals. She founded the Awaaz Foundation, a public trust that aims to decrease noise pollution due to horns, firecrackers, construction activities, amongst other things. Thanks to her work, in 2016, the High Court created orders that significantly decreased noise pollution during festivals and celebrations across Mumbai. Abdulali also petitions against illegal sand mining and has been threatened, attacked, and intimidated by the sand mafia numerous times. One particular case, whereby Abdulali discovered illegal sand mining close to her own home, led to the Bombay High Court banning illegal sand mining along all coasts as well as to the banning of any sand extraction throughout the state of Maharashtra. In light of this event, Abdulali founded the Movement against Intimidation, Threat and Revenge against Activists (MITRA). Abdulali was also named the ‘Minister of Noise’ by press and government figures and has been awarded the Spikes Asia Silver Award for her dedicated work to noise pollution and sand mining lobbying.

2 02, 2022

Permanently Organized Communities.

2023-02-02T16:25:03-05:00Tags: |

In this article Movement Generation founder, Michelle Mascarenhas, details why we need place-based permanently organized communities. Specifically now, the Covid-19 pandemic has offered opportunities to build the types of local systems our movements need, including but not limited to: shifting labor to mutuality and care, creating mutual aid networks, resourcing mutual aid funds, and working towards self-governance. Photo Credit: Brooke Anderson

28 01, 2022

The Young Activist Fighting To ‘Change the Faces of Power’

2023-02-01T23:10:09-05:00Tags: |

Ilona Duverge, a housing justice activist from New York City, experienced housing insecurity as a college student and is now a movement leader for systemic and electoral change. Low-income and public housing, especially in formerly redlined areas, can be inadequate in the winter due to lack of insulation and sufficient heating but dangerous in the summer given suffocating heat. This is exacerbated by the issue of climate change. Duverge has worked at the intersection of these issues, first volunteering with local campaigns and later becoming the deputy organizing director for U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign. She is also the founder of Movement School, which trains working class activists on how they can run for office, as well as a housing and legal fellow who helps tenants of public housing learn their rights. Duverge’s advocacy for the NYC Housing Authority to upgrade their housing with climate action and clean energy in mind inspired Ocasio-Cortez to introduce the Green New Deal for Housing, which would invest in sustainable housing upgrades and create green jobs. Duverge’s vision of the climate-economy link has sparked powerful action against poverty and environmental racism. Photo Credit: Ilona Duverge  

17 07, 2021

The Rebirth Of The Food Sovereignty Movement

2021-07-17T18:50:51-04:00Tags: |

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a wave of backyard food planting and production. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their local and regional food systems, and are taking initiative to support local food sovereignty projects. Doria Robinson of the urban farming project, Urban Tilth, describes the importance of CSAs in this time. Debbie Harris of Urban Adamah in Berkeley, California, points out the vital sense community urban farms create and nurture throughout times of hardship. Food sovereignty activists hope the push for local and equitable food systems continue after the end of the global pandemic. Photo Credit: Wendy Becktold

6 07, 2021

How Indoor Pollution Affects Women & Children

2021-07-06T17:01:25-04:00Tags: |

Indoor air quality and pollutants are today recognised as a potential source of health risks, with women and children being the main victims. While children’s physical characteristics make them more vulnerable to the effects of indoor health pollution with immediate and long-term health consequences, women in countries like India do all the cooking (with their children) and spend more time indoors. It is important to create awareness by educating people about the serious threat indoor pollution poses to health and well-being, in order to reduce exposure with better kitchen management and efforts to protect children. Photo credit: Chinky Shukla/ CSE

6 07, 2021

Women in the Water Sector: Working Together for the Future

2021-07-06T14:57:10-04:00Tags: |

Studies show that there is a lack of women working in the water sector, which includes a lack of women leaders. Specifically, less than twenty percent of water workers are women in the United States. But the water organizations that include female leadership tend to benefit—whether women are included in sustainability, community engagement or economic development roles. Keisha Brown, one such leader, has had extensive experience working in community-based partnerships to improve water quality while remaining accountable to the local communities the work is enacted in. According to her, the lens of social justice must be applied to the infrastructure industry and the impacts of infrastructure on people’s well-being should be carefully assessed. Photo Credit: Storm Water Solutions

6 07, 2021

Meet Your Farmer: Brooklyn Grange, The World’s Largest Rooftop Urban Farm United States

2021-07-06T14:52:59-04:00Tags: |

In Brooklyn, New York, Michelle Cashen and Anastasia Cole Plakias manage and lead Brooklyn Grange, the world’s largest rooftop urban farm. Eleven stories above the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the farm produces greens, fruits, and other edible plants. Cashen and Plakias describe their commitment to urban farming and providing fresh food without using pesticides and herbicides. Photo Credit: Local Roots NYC

3 03, 2021

Making Women’s Voices Count – Addressing Gender Issues In Disaster Risk Management In East Asia And The Pacific

2021-03-03T19:51:19-05:00Tags: |

This guidance note, aimed at world bank staff, clients and development partners active in gender and disaster risk management, provides an overview of the links between gender and disaster risk management. Natural disasters in the East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) region reveal gender inequalities in higher mortality rates for women rather than men. Gender-blind policies and responses perpetuate and increase inequalities for the female population and other vulnerable groups. Therefore, the guidance offers gender-sensitive strategies, recommendations and resources for the design and implementation of gender perspectives across a spectrum of disaster risk management policies, including plans and decision-making processes, recovery strategies, education and training. The gender-sensitive strategy is three-fold: use appropriate gender terminology; ensure equal gender representation in planning and consultation processes; train gender champions and female leaders to mainstream gender-equal institutional initiatives.

23 02, 2021

Urban Girls and women redesign their cities using digital tools | UN-Habitat

2024-02-15T11:54:58-05:00Tags: |

This article highlights the creation of a toolbox, titled Her City, from a group of young women in the Botkyrka municipality of Sweden that want to redesign their city into one where they all feel safer. The women joined forces with local municipalities in order to reconceive how the Fittja neighborhood can be transformed for the better. To do so, research labs with the young women and girls, stakeholders, and local authorities were created to collect data on what it is like to design a city from a girl or woman’s perspective. Data collection included interviews, safety audits, explanatory walks, and observations. Using the data, the group developed action plans to redesign the neighborhood through the use of Minecraft. These Minecraft plans were then sent to the Mayor of Botkyrka and the planning commission. One of the participants, Moné Ukonu, describes how the project began with the group walking around Fittja and highlighting all of the things that made them feel unsafe. Through Minecraft, the women were able to test out their ideas for a new city and see what they could do with the space. The current pilot in Fittja is being facilitated by UN-Habitat and the independent Swedish think tank, Global Utmaning, and has garnered widespread media attention. UN-Habitat has teamed up with other organizations to provide mainstream access to the toolbox, with the ultimate goal being to have any city that wants to build a city for the inclusion of all its citizens be able to do so through the use of the toolbox as a guide. Photo Credit: Tove Levonen

16 02, 2021

Get To The Bricks: The Experiences Of Black Women Foom New Orleans Public Housing After Hurricane Katrina

2021-02-16T20:43:53-05:00Tags: |

The report explores the experiences of almost 200 black women who were living in “The Big Four”- four large housing projects within the city of New Orleans - when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. They were displaced from their prior homes due to the hurricane and the closure and demolition of the public housing units. This case shows that the experiences of black women in public housing were not taken into consideration when developing a plan for post-Katrina recovery. U.S. policies were implemented in a manner that took away opportunities, supports, and infrastructures from low-income women and their families most in need of a reliable safety net as they sought to recover from a catastrophic set of disasters and endure the Great Recession. Including the various experiences and voices of these women in the policy discussion going forward will ensure that future disasters do not perpetuate the marginalization of the most disadvantaged members of our communities.

15 12, 2020

Focus on Housing and Jobs or the Climate Fight ‘Goes Nowhere’

2023-11-28T21:50:46-05:00Tags: , |

Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of Uprose, has been leading a movement to stop new developments in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood that would displace local communities. She has presented an alternative project that would give back to the community and help meet climate goals. Yeampierre has proposed that instead of the waterfront being bought and rebuilt by private developers, which would result in gentrification and the displacement of many BIPOC communities in the neighborhood, that a bustling green industry hub be built. This would support the shift to renewable energy through development of wind turbines, solar panels, and low-carbon technology, while providing fair salaries for neighborhood residents and also benefit immigrants and undocumented individuals without much formal education. These developments would sustain and develop communities that are at increased risk from the climate crisis. Photo credit: Pete Voelker

14 11, 2020

Women and urban place-making

2023-05-26T14:52:41-04:00Tags: |

This article summarizes the research of Professor Linda Peake, Director of the City Institute at York University since 2013. Professor Peake’s work focuses on the intersection of urbanization and women, as women make up a disproportionate amount of the urban poor and face the impacts of many social injustices such as employment and housing insecurity. Given this context, Professor Peake’s research aims to understand the relational transformation between poverty and 21st century urbanization. The research also seeks to explore traditional frameworks on ideologies surrounding the formation of urban spaces by looking into the ways in which women experience these environments within conditions of economic insecurity or other social burdens. As well, the research involves urban policymakers for the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and Goal 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities). The research itself is taking place in seven different cities globally: Cairo, Cochabamba, Delhi, Georgetown (Guyana), Ibadan, Ramallah, and Shanghai, for their varying geographic and socioeconomic conditions. Photo Credit: N/A

3 09, 2020

What Should We Know About Wildfires In California

2020-09-09T22:57:12-04:00Tags: |

This Greenpeace article lists trends impacting the occurrence of both forest and wildland fires today and solutions to those trends. The climate crisis is fueling extreme weather events, including an exceptionally dry winter and record-breaking heat waves which leave more dried up wildland vegetation to kindle the fires.  Despite this, the Trump Administration and the logging industry regularly use wildfires as opportunities to make the case for more logging under the guise of fuels reduction and fire prevention. Photo Credit: 2016 Erskine Fire in Central California, © US Forest Service

12 05, 2020

Japanese Youth Climate Activists Confront Society To Save It

2020-11-07T17:37:36-05:00Tags: |

Mika Mashiko is a 20-year-old climate activist in Japan who started a Fridays for Future initiative in her hometown of Nasu as a response to mass deforestation and corporate exploitation of natural resources. Mashiko has been working with the small group to spread increased awareness about climate issues, gaining greater support since it was founded in September 2019. This ongoing outreach has led to the local Nasu government officially declaring a Climate Emergency. Other youth activists including Yui Tanaka and Yayako Suzuki are demonstrating against the construction of new coal power plants and calling on the Japanese government to commit to greater greenhouse gas reductions. While public demonstrations are still less widely supported in Japan than in other parts of the world, climate activism is becoming more popular among youth and adult allies and increasing public pressure for accountability. Photo credit: Ryusei Takahashi, Japan Times

17 03, 2020

Air pollution likely to increase coronavirus death rate, warn experts

2020-03-22T21:29:12-04:00Tags: |

COVID-19, or the coronavirus, is known to affect the respiratory tract of those infected. But there is new evidence that indicates patients exposed to polluted air are at a higher risk of dying. Additionally, patients with chronic respiratory issues after being exposed to long-term air pollution are less able t fight off the disease. Science tells us that epidemics like this will occur with increasing frequency. So reducing air pollution is basic investment for a healthier future. Photo credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

3 07, 2019

Nurdle by Nurdle, Citizens Took on A Billion-Dollar Plastic Company — and Won

2020-11-20T17:34:49-05:00Tags: |

A federal judge recently ruled that Formosa Plastics, a petrochemical company outside Port Lavaca, Texas, can be held liable for violating state and federal water pollution laws. The company could face a penalty of up to $162 million. Thanks to data collected by resident volunteers, the nonprofit San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper brought a lawsuit against the company in 2017. According to the lawsuit, the company violated its environmental permits for years, dumping millions of small plastic pellets - called nurdles - into Lavaca Bay. Among the volunteers is Diane Wilson, a retired shrimper who has been trying to get Formosa to stop dumping in the bay since the early ’90s. Since the trial started, pollution levels haven’t changed, so she keeps gathering evidence with her kayak. Giving up is not an option for her. Photo credit: Wikimedia

13 04, 2019

GirlTrek: When Black Women Walk, Things Change

2019-04-13T16:36:26-04:00Tags: |

Morgan Dixon is the co-founder of ‘GirlTrek’, a national help organization addressing the disproportionate effects of the current health crisis in African American women. Starting with 530 women in their first year, the organization has since grown to about 100,000 African American women who walk together every day. Together the women of ‘GirlTrek’ not only boost their own physical health, they also improve the health of their families and communities while reshaping the narrative around health for women of color. Video Credit: National Sierra Club

4 04, 2019

How A Female Fast Food Worker Became An Activist

2020-11-20T17:32:47-05:00Tags: |

Shantel Walker is a manager within the fast food industry and an organizer for proper living wages in NYC. After working over two decades at Papa John’s Pizza where Walker was paid a minimum wage of $7.50, Walker started working with organizations such as the Fight for $15, and Fast Food Forward campaigns to champion the 3.7 million Americans working in Fast Food. Walkers advocacy also addresses the disparities in healthcare coverage, workplace and scheduling policies. Photo Credit: Alex Swerdloff

3 03, 2019

For Women In Solar Energy, Progress And A Ways To Go

2020-10-07T00:39:34-04:00Tags: |

When Kristen Nicole, founder of Women in Solar Energy, penned an open letter calling out the hyper-masculine and ‘booth babe’ culture that portrayed women as sex objects, it sparked a revolution within the industry to start examining their women-specific policies and initiatives. The solar conference culture perpetuates objectification with abhorrent displays such as women in cages dressed in leather cat outfits. However, numerous programs aimed at addressing gender diversity and increasing women’s participation in the field have grown in response. SEIA’s Women Empowerment Initiative as well as Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy campaigns have contributed to the shift in the awareness around the need for diversity. Whilst more female workers make up the solar industry today, and there are more women speakers at conferences, there are still shortcomings in that women continue to earn less than men and face barriers in climbing up the career ladder. Women of colour are also disproportionately affected, and Erica Mackie, co-founder and CEO of GRID Alternatives, calls for the solar industry to not just be energy-centred but also justice-focussed, and to recognise the intersection between race and gender inequities. GRID’s Women in Solar Program aids women from diverse backgrounds and their She Shines retreat is aimed as a training and team-building exercise for women in the industry. Photo credit: Stefano Paltera, US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon

28 01, 2019

How Three Black Women Use Food As Tools For Resistance

2019-04-13T16:33:22-04:00Tags: |

Monifa Dayo, Carrie Y.T. Kholi, and Binta Ayofemi are three women using food as a vehicle for social change. They are amongst a host of Black women exiting from the restaurant industry after experiencing racism and sexism in the workplace. Monifa Dayo runs her own supper club while consciously incorporating social justice into her business model. Similarly, Carrie Y.T. Kohli’s ‘Hella Black Brunch’ brings people together around food and the African diaspora experience. Binta Ayofemi’s ‘Soul Oakland’ focuses on Black urban sustenance and restoration. Each woman views herown work as a form of resistance to the current political climate, and seeks to inspire communities of color in doing so. Photo credit: Richard Lomibao

11 01, 2019

Air Pollution ‘As Bad As Smoking In Increasing Risk of Miscarriage’

2020-09-02T20:51:19-04:00Tags: |

A recent study, the first to focus on the effects of short-term exposure to pollution by women in urban areas, has found that air pollution is just as bad as smoking for pregnant women when it comes to increasing their risk of miscarriage. The findings of the study mention that air pollution is already known to harm foetuses by increasing the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. But this recent research found pollution particles in placentas. Rising levels of nitrogen dioxide emissions around the world has increased the risk of losing a pregnancy by 16%. Researchers compare it to how the increased risk of tobacco smoke in a woman’s first trimester can result in pregnancy loss. They recommend the best course of action is to cut the overall levels of pollution in urban areas. While they also recommend pregnant women to avoid exertion on polluted days and consider buying indoor filters, they recognize that in the developing countries, these are luxuries many can’t afford. Photo credit: Rex/Shutterstock

15 10, 2018

A Water Walk In New York City

2020-10-07T00:43:14-04:00Tags: |

During the month of July, women and men, engaging in a “water walk,” walked two miles through the streets of New York City carrying empty buckets. Two miles is about the length women and girls walk in developing countries each day to obtain water, so this walk was carried out in order to symbolize their hard work. Moreover, the walk ended at the United Nations Building, so it was intended to remind policy makers about the importance of clean water as well as urge them to consider water a human right. The walk also called attention to the fact that access to water is important but if distance, cost, or other factors make that access prohibitive, then simple “access” is not enough. Photo credit: Water Aid

30 05, 2018

Mother Justice Is Environmental Justice

2019-04-13T15:42:56-04:00Tags: |

Low to moderate income families and families of color often take on a disproportionate energy burden, sacrificing funds that would otherwise be used on food or medical expenses, to pay for utility bills. Energy companies do little to nothing to help ease this burden. And more time than not, these communities are in areas that are poorly maintained and plagued by pollution. In fact, studies have shown that 71% of African Americans live in counties with federal air violations, compared to 56% of the overall population. 70% of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, which generated 30% of the U.S. electricity in 2016 and discharged millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. African Americans face the brunt of the health impacts associated with long-time exposure to toxins emitted at plants; children and the elderly are especially sensitive to such risks. These long lasting impacts take many forms, resulting in emotional, psychological and economic costs for these communities. Photo Credit: NAACP

24 05, 2018

Dolores Hayden’s Non-Sexist City

2023-05-26T14:56:45-04:00Tags: |

Irina Vinnitskaya describes Dolores Hayden’s (1980) essay “What would a Non-Sexist City Be Like? Speculations on Housing, Urban Design, and Human Work” as it relates to creating egalitarian and supportive urban environments for women. Here, Vinnitskaya elaborates on Hayden’s main argument, that the construction of cities and places are centered around the phrase “a woman’s place is in the home.” This saying translates into the perception that men belong in public life while women are domestic. Vinnitskaya highlights Hayden’s appeal for change to this system, as Hayden suggests that viable solutions will be found through community building, not through market answers (i.e. fast food chains to replace home cooked meals). Hayden proposes a solution for more egalitarian cities through the creation of participatory groups called HOMES: Homemakers Organizations for a More Egalitarian Society. These groups would be founded upon grassroots organizing and collective bargaining to obtain zoning permits and other accommodations to create proposed communal structures and spaces. Hayden suggests modeling HOMES after limited equity housing cooperatives as a way for collective arrangements to be organized, with any number of households being able to take part in the communal services of a HOMES group. Photo Credit: Routledge, 1999

18 05, 2018

The Entrepreneur Making Healthy Food Accessible To Her Brooklyn Neighborhood

2020-10-05T17:16:03-04:00Tags: |

Francesca Chaney is working to alleviate food insecurity and make the wellness movement accessible in her neighbourhood of Bushwick, New York. A dream since she was 19 years old, the café, Sol Sips, started as a pop-up shop and evolved into a permanent fixture in the community. With a popular brunch menu and sliding scale prices, a diverse range of community members visit the spot ranging from indigenous, Latinx, and people of colour to old-timers and families. She serves a community that has largely been left aside by the mainstream health and wellness movement and Sol Sips remains a contrast to the majority of vegan and plant-based restaurants. Chaney wants to counter the trend that to eat healthy is a privilege only for those who can afford it. This socially conscious space that pays mind to the demographic of the neighbourhood is one of a range of businesses fighting to make vegan and healthy food accessible. Photo credit: Sol Sips

11 04, 2018

The Women Reviving Heirloom Grains And Flour

2020-10-06T23:19:28-04:00Tags: |

A group of women bakers in Los Angeles, California were selected to speak at the panel, “Bread Winners: A Conversation with Women in Bread,” organized by the California Grain Campaign in honor of Women’s History Month. The group of women assembled included baker Kate Pepper, California Grain Campaign Organizer Mai Nguyen, miller Nan Kohler, and baker Roxana Jullapat. The panel focused on the women’s involvement in the California Grain Campaign’s goal to push bakers to use 20 percent whole-grain, California grown-and-milled flours. During the panel Nguyen brought up the historical importance of women in agriculture, specifically in terms of seed conservation. Nguyen also expressed gratitude to cotton breeder Sally Fox, and chemist Monica Spiller, whose seed projects made Sonora Wheat a more familiar food amongst consumers. Photo Credit: Civil Eats

28 03, 2018

Female Farmers In The East Bay Cultivate A Sense Of Community

2020-09-02T22:42:25-04:00Tags: |

Kanchan Dawn Hunter of Spiral Gardens, Kelly Carlisle, founder of Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project, and Gail Myers, founder of Farms to Grow, are three women of colour who are challenging the dominant image of white, male farmers in the agricultural industry. Females farmers are underrepresented both in terms of ownership but also with respect to the power dynamics in the agricultural system. For them, the act of growing food is intrinsically political, and is a way of empowering marginalized communities to re-establish their food sovereignty and restore their connection with themselves and planet Earth. Spiral Gardens provides free educational programs taught at its community farm and hosts community work days. Acta Non Verba aims to empower young people through urban farming and conducts field trips and farm visits. Farms to Grow supports marginalized farmers around the country who are practicing sustainable agriculture. Other organizations such as MESA and Urban Tilth also work to support a sustainable and equitable food industry. Photo Credit: Andria Lo.

23 03, 2018

Impunity For Violence Against Women Defenders Of Territory, Common Goods, And Nature In Latin America

2020-10-23T23:16:06-04:00Tags: |

This report by Urgent Action Fund of Latin America and the Caribbean (UAF-LAC) analyzes the condition of women who defend environmental rights in Latin American countries. By analyzing the case studies of thirteen women defenders, a clear continuum of structural violence against the women emerges. On the one end, women defenders are subject to the criminalization of their activities and to harassment from various actors such as companies, the police, and the media. At the most extreme end of this violence continuum, women defenders are assassinated or “disappeared.” In cases such as these, the state, if it is not actively colluding with the perpetrators, often remains silent. UAF-LAC, then, calls for the state to protect women defenders by eliminating the impunity perpetrators currently enjoy, by eliminating the criminalization of defenders’ work and by creating a safe environment for them to work in. Specifically, the state must financially, politically, legally and psycho-socially support women defenders. Photo credit: UAF-LAC

1 03, 2018

The Formal Economy as Patriarchy: Vandana Shiva’s Radical Vision

2020-11-07T18:03:44-05:00Tags: |

At the Bond conference in London on international development, Vandana Shiva is a voice out of the chorus. Anti-“empowerment,” anti-“jobs,” and anti-“formal economy,” she rejects many of the mainstream women advancement narratives. According to her, the biggest challenge is getting to the point where women’s power, knowledge and production are being recognized. This is not possible within the framework of the formal economy because it is defined on the terms of the patriarchy by those in control of nature and society. Women living under principles of autonomy and dignity are called an informal economy, but they are simply living in a different system where the power of men over women is not the organizing principle. Photo credit: Stefano Guidi/Corbis via Getty Image 

9 02, 2018

Women’s Needs Must Be Accommodated In Disaster Relief Measures For Puerto Rico

2020-04-24T16:21:51-04:00Tags: |

Puerto Rico is in need of disaster relief that adequately addresses the disproportional impacts Hurricane Irma and Maria have had on Puerto Rican women. Women across the world are already more likely to experience higher rates of sexual violence, familial responsibilities, and restricted access to reproductive healthcare in the aftermath of climate disasters. Puerto Rican women in particular are at very high risk for intimate partner violence in the world without stressors such as natural emergencies. Given these statistics and the causal relationship between poverty and violence toward women, upcoming policies such as the new year budget must support women appropriately. Photo Credit: Mario Tama  

11 12, 2017

These Women In The Philippines Scour A Dump Site For Trash To Turn Into ‘Something Beautiful’

2018-07-13T16:56:50-04:00Tags: |

Lumago Designs is a social enterprise in Dumaguete City, Philippines that is run by and for women. Established in 2011, the organization allows women living near the city dump in the Candau-ay community to cultivate the skill of upcycling and reusing. Many of the women were once scavengers – sorting through the 80 tons of garbage sent to the dump a day in search of recyclable materials that they could sell. Now, they work to turn trash into beauty. Their jewelry, bags, and household items are sold across the Philippines and in parts of the US and Europe. Women are paid above minimum wage for the pieces they produce while they work from home. For many, being a part of this group and cultivating financial autonomy has been life changing. Photo Credit: Lumago Designs

23 10, 2017

Celebrating Women Of Color “Solutionaries” In Detroit

2018-01-23T17:55:44-05:00Tags: |

Women in Detroit, Michigan constitute 53 percent of the population, and 91 percent of all women in the city are women of color. Despite the high numbers, women of color continue to be excluded from decision-making processes when it comes to Detroit’s economic and social development. This report emphasizes the significance of including women of color by profiling 20 women from diverse backgrounds who are committed to empowering a just and sustainable future for Detroit through their work. Among the women profiled is Rev. Roslyn Bouier, who after overcoming domestic violence and drug addiction, managed to establish the largest food pantry in the city. Photo-credit: idreamdetroit.org

15 10, 2017

How To Turn Neighborhoods Into Hubs Of Resilience

2017-10-31T01:14:57-04:00Tags: |

Connectedness and equity are two key aspects of how we can change, reverse, avoid and mitigate climate change. Elizabeth Yeampierre, director of Uprose, a grassroots organization in New York, works with the Center for Working Families to build a participatory process for its resilience approach to climate change while maintaining quality and safe jobs. People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) is a community group in Buffalo, New York that fights high energy costs through renewable and alternative energy projects, improving the urban landscape through their 25-square-block Green Development Zone (GDZ). Richmond, California is a historically black neighbourhood fighting toxic pollution and contamination by Chevron refinery. A coalition of local nonprofits  including the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment(ACCE), and Richmond Progressive Alliance, Faith-Works organized the community to win local elections and bring about change. Photo credit: PUSH Buffalo

2 10, 2017

Post-Hurricane Recovery Efforts Must Include Women’s Voices

2020-09-02T21:41:29-04:00Tags: |

In this article, Dr. Heidi Hartmann and Geanine Wester center the lived experiences of low-income black women impacted by post-Katrina recovery in New Orleans twelve years ago as a lesson for policy planning and development post-Irma and post-Harvey. They outline how women are more likely to live in poverty—especially women of color—and represent more of the elderly population, which make them more vulnerable to climate disasters and gender-based violence both before and after disasters. For the women in public housing prior to Hurricane Katrina, they faced recovery policies that effectively eliminated their homes to make way for mixed-income developments, dispersed and curtailed public services for low-income families, and devastated key community support networks. These stories underline the importance of including women, particularly poor women and women of color, in the process of rebuilding whole communities post-disaster.

30 08, 2017

Color of Climate: Meet Valencia Gunder, A Power Player In Miami’s Fight Against Climate Gentrification

2017-10-30T03:35:18-04:00Tags: |

Valencia Gunder, resident of a working class, predominantly black neighbourhood in Miami, is one of the main activists against the gentrification of another similar neighbourhood: Little Haiti. She works at an organization called New Florida Majority, which aims to empower marginalized segments of society. In this piece, Valencia tells us about how in the past, poor and black communities were pushed far away from the sea, into higher and cheaper grounds. Nowadays, with the sea-level raising, we see the gentrification and forcing out of communities like Little Haiti for richer and higher-end developments. Valencia is an active voice fighting for racial and climate justice, on behalf of those who usually do not get to speak out. Photo credit: Ashley Velez/The Root

26 08, 2017

In South Asian Slums, Women Face The Consequences Of Climate Change

2017-10-26T00:14:41-04:00Tags: |

Research by the Urban Institute quantifies how poor women in South Asia feel the impacts of climate change. Torrential rain and poor drainage contribute to the proliferation of disease, overwhelming women with more domestic work and sleep deprivation; not only that, but floods prevented women and men from working, leading to economic insecurity, alcoholism and domestic abuse. Climate change affects different aspects of women’s lives: their financial security, their marriage, and their physical well-being. Photo credit: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images.

29 07, 2017

Gender Into Urban Climate Change Initiative

2017-10-29T01:04:47-04:00Tags: |

Is the climate policy of your city genderproof? There is a triangular relationship between climate change, gender and cities. GenderCC launched the Gender into Urban Climate Change Initiative at the 2015 COP21 climate negotiations, with Johannesburg, Makassar, and Delhi meetings held since then to organize and empower women around the links between climate change, gender and cities. Photo credit: gender cc

26 07, 2017

Community Seeks Justice And Wants Measures To Be Taken Regarding Soil And Water Contamination By Health-Threatening Chemical Elements

2017-10-26T00:24:05-04:00Tags: |

Susie Worley-Jenkins and Vickie Pizzion of West Virginia tells us stories about chemical pollution, cancer, and abortions linked to environmental toxins in their communities. Out of 251 members of their community, at least 86 died from or are fighting cancer in the past two years. Many blame it on the PCB contamination dumpsite from Shaffer Equipment Company closeby. The lack of knowledge and warnings regarding PCB’s effects, combined with poor maintenance made it so that water, soil and air was polluted due to erosion and floods, explains Pamela Nixon, a former environmental advocate. Not only that, but this population faces yet another threat to their health through toxic fracking waste disposal, with hazardous volatile compounds contaminating their water. This has prevented residents from using their tap water and has even caused chemical burns, including in children, reports Sandra Keeney. Photo credit: Project Earth

15 07, 2017

A Canadian City Is Putting Warning Labels On Gas Pumps

2018-02-15T12:27:28-05:00Tags: |

Youth activist Emily Kelsall is at the forefront of the launch of a new program to place warning labels on all gas pumps in the Canadian town of North Vancouver. In collaboration with the climate action group Our Horizon, Kelsall has worked tirelessly to convince her local city council and mayor of the necessity of using this platform to connect with people and showcase the impact of fossil fuel use on climate change and the acceleration of environmental devastation. Photo Credit: Andrea Crossan

7 07, 2017

Afro-Latino Fest NYC 2017: Women, Climate Change And Rural/Urban Displacement

2017-10-29T21:48:03-04:00Tags: |

Afrodescendant communities in the West are particularly displaced by the negative impacts of climate change in cities. Women of color are on the urban frontlines of these communities. They are leading the struggle through mobilizing their communities and offering strategies to fight urban displacement caused by environmental issues and gentrification. This incredible Afro-Latino Fest in New York City video panel includes women speakers Nyasha Laing, Nasha Paola Holguin, Dr. Kesha Khan Perry, Ana Cristina da Silva Caminha, Zelene Pineda, and Thanu Yakupitiyage in dialogue about the issues at hand. Photo credit: Afro-Latino Fest NYC 2017

26 06, 2017

Afghan Women Refugees Resurrected As India’s Plastic Waste Warriors

2017-10-26T00:21:03-04:00Tags: |

Farah Naz is one of five Afghan refugee women who is not only battling traditional gender roles by working, but also becoming an unlikely fighter against plastic waste pollution in New Delhi, India. Through Project Patradya, a  business initiative, she is employed to produce and supply edible bowls, cups and cutlery for cafes, restaurants and parlors as an alternative to non-biodegradable plastics utensils. The idea is to also have training in sales and marketing, empowering women to run their own recycling business within three years.

1 06, 2017

Reflective Paint Helps Women In Slums Combat Extreme Heat Caused By Climate Change

2017-11-01T23:49:26-04:00Tags: |

Climate change-induced heatwaves are increasing across India, endangering millions of lives and livelihoods. In response, groups such as the Mahila Housing Trust, are working with women in 100 slums across five cities to experiment with low-cost approaches to cooling homes using reflective paint and other simple methods to reduce the direct impacts being felt by marginalized and impoverished residents. Photo Credit: Mahila Housing Trust, Pixabay

31 05, 2017

Alice Hinman And Natural Beekeeping At Apiopolis

2017-10-31T22:42:55-04:00Tags: |

Alice Hinman is the founder of a bee sanctuary and sustainable honey company in Raleigh, North Carolina. A natural beekeeper, she see the decline in pollinator and honeybee population worldwide as an opportunity to tackle a global challenge, to which she is responding by producing honey for Raleigh's network of local restaurants. She is passionate about supporting local food and creating green jobs rooted in sustainability and community. Photo credit: Johnny Gillette

31 05, 2017

Urban Farmer Transforms Community Into Thriving Local Food Haven

2017-10-31T01:41:03-04:00Tags: |

Sheryll Durrant is a leader of the urban farming movement in New York City, which engages with more than 600 community gardens throughout the city with the GreenThumb program. She began volunteering at a community garden in her neighborhood during the financial crisis in 2008 and has since gotten higher education in farming. Through her work at the Sustainable Flatbush garden, Sheryll saw the importance of reaching out to the community to understand their needs, which increased member attendance at events and engagement with the garden. Sheryll also expanded her work to other neighborhoods with high levels of food insecurity or with many refugees, working as a garden manager and a seasonal farm coordinator at the Kelly Street Garden and the International Rescue Committee's New Roots Community Farm, respectively. Margaret Brown (Natural Resources Defense Council) who works on food issues, also reiterates how important these places can be for more access to fresh and quality food, as well as a place for socialization, integration, and nutritious education. Photo credit: Keka Marzagao/Sustainable Flatbush

31 05, 2017

10 Female Urban Farmers Setting The Tone For Sustainable Cities

2017-10-31T01:17:07-04:00Tags: |

Ten female urban farmers are changing the urban agriculture movement: Erika Allen carries out multiple food system projects in Chicago, while Natasha Bowens is a writer and advocate for the black farming movement. Kelly Carlisle is the founder of the grassroots NGO Acta Non Verba, which focuses on teaching youth about gardening, businesses and finance. Natalie Clark established the Harvest Blessing Garden in Jacksonville, an urban lot in where she teaches sustainable and urban farming. Gail Myers is an academician with a documentary Rhythms of the Land and a non-profit Farms to Grow, through which she explores food equity and racial relations. Read the article to learn about the work of Jamila Norman, Leah Penniman, Karen Washington, Yonnette Fleming, Lindsey Lunsford and more!

29 05, 2017

Meet The Ladies Who Are Growing Food In Los Angeles

2017-10-29T00:46:32-04:00Tags: |

Manju Kumar, manager of Sarvodaya Farms in Los Angeles, believes that today’s problems are rooted in our disconnection with nature. Her permaculture urban farm provides a pathway towards reconnecting with the land through growing food within city limits. For Kumar, farming is also act of women’s resistance because of the autonomy that comes with digging your hands deep into soil. Farming is still extremely male dominated in the United States. Moreover, in Los Angeles, 1 in 10 families suffer from food insecurity or go hungry despite Southern California holding claim to one of the most agriculturally productive territories in the world. Katie Lewis, Zoe Howell, Leigh Adams, Mireya Arizmendi de Haddad, and Lindy Ly are fellow women urban farmers and gardeners who are leading the way in making food more accessible for all. Photo credit: Link TV

24 05, 2017

‘My House Is In A Superfund Site’

2020-09-02T20:58:58-04:00Tags: |

In this video, Grist fellow, Vishakha Darbha shares how residents of East Chicago, Indiana are fighting widespread lead contamination in the soil and targeted displacement from public housing. Despite long standing knowledge of unhealthy levels of contamination since 1985 and Superfund designation in 2008, cleanup efforts have been slow and uneven, with some communities being ignored and evicted. Tara Adams is among the 1,000 residents evicted from West Calumet Housing Complex that are being left to fend for limited affordable housing and search for cleaner land and water. The Trump administration is also seeking to cut Superfund program funding by $273 million, leaving many more communities to suffer from historical pollution. 

26 04, 2017

Toronto General Hospital Nurse’s Plastic Collection Transformed Into Mural

2017-10-26T00:04:28-04:00Tags: |

Tilda Shalof is turning 28 years of collected medical waste into sentimental art murals that illustrate the medical care world and patient’s stories. As an Intensive Care Unit nurse at Toronto General Hospital, Shalof has always viewed the plastic caps and waste from syringe coverings and other medical implements as meaningful colorful bits connected to caring for the ill, and never as garbage. Each of the around 100 sterilized pieces she’s been collecting every day have been reused to create a stunning and powerful four-by-nine feet medical art piece made of 10,000 plastic pieces. Photo credit: Steve Russell/Toronto Star

6 04, 2017

Corrina Gould On The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust: An Urban Indigenous Women-Led Land Trust

2017-12-06T14:50:21-05:00Tags: |

Corrina Gould, a Chochenyo and Kerkin Ohlone woman leader, born and raised in Oakland, California, speaks about the history and work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Indigenous-woman led initiative to reclaim and protect ancestral lands in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. She also speaks about her family's history, and the history of erasure, colonization and forced removal in the Bay. The recorded presentation comes from the second annual “Religion & Ecology Summit” at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). Photo credit: Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion Program.

31 03, 2017

Color of Climate: Is Climate Change Gentrifying Miami’s Black Neighborhoods?

2017-10-31T01:49:25-04:00Tags: |

Paulette Richards, from Liberty City, tells The Root how lately, many neighbours from one of Miami’s previously undervalued and black neighborhood are moving out due to a new type of gentrification: the climate gentrification. With the rise of the sea level, places like Richards’s home, farther from the ocean and higher than coastal areas, are now deemed as good neighborhoods to live. This is what drove Richard to start raising awareness and involvement of her community through different leisure activities revolving around climate change issues and also a summer program called “Climate and Me” targeted at youth members of the community. She is committed to making a change and helping her community face this gentrification, in addition to Marleine Bastien, from Little Haiti, another low-level income predominantly black neighborhood facing climate gentrification in Miami. Bastien is the executive directress of Fanm Ayisyen nan Miyami (Haitian Women of Miami), an organization that is focused on poor Haitian women, their families and their needs. Photo credit: Ashley Velez/The Root

31 03, 2017

Interview With Nancy Le: Using Nature As A Classroom

2017-10-31T01:20:06-04:00Tags: |

Nancy Le is the chair of the Los Angeles Chapter of Inspiring Connections Outdoors (ICO), a club that arranges outdoors experiences for urban youth from underprivileged communities. In her interview, she discusses the challenges of the program such as finding funding for trips, finding volunteer leaders that also come from Black and Latino communities, with whom the main public of these excursions can relate to. Encouraging youth to broaden their horizons through contact with nature is an alternative way of empowering them and hopefully they will continue to participate in the program as leaders. Photo credit: Sierra Club

27 03, 2017

Two Women Are Coaxing Los Angeles To Switch From Cars To Bikes

2017-10-27T10:43:46-04:00Tags: |

As people look to California to lead the way on climate action, Rubina Ghazarian and Avital Shavit are doing their part as Los Angeles-based transportation planners. They have been working for years to launch a bike-share system for the large, complex metropolitan area. Bike-share officially launched in 2016 and has already been credited with saving almost 300,000 pounds of CO2. Photo credit: Grist50!

27 03, 2017

Ahmina Maxey Fights For Safer Water Disposal

2017-10-27T10:38:16-04:00Tags: |

While living in Detroit, Ahmina Maxey successfully implemented a much-needed citywide recycling program. Now working with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives organization, Ahmina focuses on what happens to garbage after it’s picked up. She fights for an incinerator-free future, eliminating the dangerous levels of CO2, arsenic, lead, and other deadly chemicals entering our communities. Photo credit: Grist50!

31 01, 2017

Architect June Grant Designs For Change

2017-10-31T16:28:46-04:00Tags: |

June Grant is a Jamaican architect in the United States focused on technology and design. She has a technology firm called Blink!Lab, through which she applies new technology and 3-D printers to make prototypes and designs that save energy and deal with waste on many fronts: water, energy, heat, etc. She tells us how small details and the use of topographic and geographic data can make a big difference in saving energy and resources. At the moment, June is working at San Francisco Bay Area, dealing with the rise of the sea level and its dangers to those living to close to the water, and has come up with an innovative wastewater treatment plant that could tackle a lot of the community’s environmental issues. Photo credit: Lori Eanes

29 01, 2017

The Urban Disadvantage: Rethinking Maternal And Newborn Health Priorities

2017-10-29T00:39:16-04:00Tags: |

What happens when those invested in newborn and maternal health in impoverished urban areas are faced with the reality that more than fifty percent of the world now lives in cities? Massive hurdles occur, especially when trying to translate maternal care from rural methodologies to urban ones, in a scramble to cater to the dramatically increasing migration of mothers into urban areas. The environmental destruction and gender discrimination that are embedded in urbanization are heavily felt by pregnant women and new mothers, whose vulnerability is compounded by climate change.

23 01, 2017

Thirsty For Change: The Untapped Potential Of Women In Urban Water Management

2017-10-31T13:18:38-04:00Tags: |

Waste, pollution, and the rising demand for water by an estimated 5 billion people by 2030 is placing stress on urban water infrastructure, resulting in health and economic impacts particularly felt by urban poor and marginalized communities. Urban centers in developing countries, where women and girls are the primary water resources managers, are already being hit hardest by water stress. Drawing on studies which find that water projects involving women are transparent and equitable, increasing the number of women working in the urban water sector will help solve challenges related to design, distribution, operation, and maintenance of water systems.

5 01, 2017

All-Women Alliance Tackles Industrial Pollution in Colombia

2017-10-29T21:51:56-04:00Tags: |

Colombia’s highly polluting construction industry is being transformed by an all-women alliance ready to make industrialization sustainable in efforts to help tackle climate change. The Fostering Cleaner Production Initiative invites Colombian women to take on industrial pollution for a greener future. Women within the initiative are being trained to bring pollution prevention to their current positions that deal with water, sewage, and varying construction companies. These women are being credited for the industry transitioning into renewable energies, and lowering waste. Photo credit: UN Climate Change Climate Action

7 12, 2016

It Was A Blighted City Block, But This Woman Is Turning It Into A Solar-Powered Ecovillage

2017-09-29T15:18:02-04:00Tags: |

After running for Highland Park’s city council three times, Shamayim Harris decided that she needed an alternative plan to make things better in her city, which has a history of administrative negligence. That’s when the idea of Avalon Village was born: an ecologically sustainable neighborhood that hosts a variety of community services, such as a center for children to eat meals and receive help with homework, all powered by clean energy sources. Photo credit: Zenobia Jeffries

31 10, 2016

The Guerilla Gardener

2017-10-31T02:00:07-04:00Tags: |

Natalie Flores and Sarah Klein started a garden in an occupied lot that was unused and grew it into a community garden with collaboration from neighbors to start Sunshine Partnerships. They continued and expanded their gardening into other neighborhoods across Los Angeleas, California, inviting the community in, and occupying places and hosting parties that tap into an existing network of urban gardeners. Sunshine Partnerships also collaborates with Transition Mar Vista, a grassroots community groups that has a project called Good Karma Gardens, to foster a network of people helping neighbors to build gardens in their homes. Julie, co-founder of The Learning Garden at Venice High School, is an example of someone positively affected by this project, turning her front yard into a vegetable garden. Photo credit: Ted Soqui

31 10, 2016

Gender, Urbanization And Democratic Governance

2017-10-31T00:44:55-04:00Tags: |

With the rapid growth of urban growth, increasingly impacted by climate change, there is also proving to be a rising rate of gender inequality within cities. This document explains how gender inequality and urban vulnerability to climate are linked. Political decision-making and social and economic power have a deeply rooted gender bias that favors men in urban areas. For this reason, gender equality and women’s empowerment are of principal importance in the post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.

29 10, 2016

Sustainable Cities, Gender And Transport

2017-10-29T00:58:23-04:00Tags: |

This online factsheet from the Women’s Environment and Development Organization argues for centering gender in sustainable cities development. Although cities are providing economic growth and wealth, such wealth can replicate patterns of gender discrimination, linked to devastating environmental destruction. Environmental sustainability and climate change are embedded in gender equal approaches that result in more sustainable policy development, urban infrastructure, and transportation which meet the needs of all abilities, races, ages income levels. Photo credit: WEDO

26 10, 2016

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments In Indonesia: Where Are The Women’s Perspectives?

2017-10-26T00:36:06-04:00Tags: |

In Indonesia, cities are developing methodologies towards climate change impact resistance and recovery by investing in city-level resiliency efforts. However, although women are most impacted there is insufficient data on women’s perspectives within urban resilience planning. In this assessment report, the Indonesian NGO Kota Kita presents the significance of a gendered approach in urban resiliency projects, how to improve women’s climate vulnerability assessment, and an examination of specific gender centered resiliency initiatives in Indonesia. Three out of four authors of this report are on the ground women researchers and activists. They are Sarah Dougherty, Rizqa Hidayani, and Dati Fatimah. Photo credit: Kota Kita

26 10, 2016

Gender Equality And Sustainable Urbanization

2017-10-26T00:27:58-04:00Tags: |

Over half of the global population lives in urban regions. Ninety-five percent of urban growth is happening in the developing world while the world’s urban population is predicted to increase to 70 percent by 2050. Urbanization is intensifying environmental destruction while simultaneously resulting in gender discrimination. This UN Women Watch report demonstrates the positive socioeconomic outcomes of cities that are designed for environmental sustainability and are also equipping themselves to eliminate urban gender inequalities. Adequate shelter, proper water and sanitation, and policy which tends to the unequal burdens women carry in moments of urban climate crisis are powerful solutions. Photo credit: UN-HABITAT

26 10, 2016

Lessons From Improving A Gender-Based Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment

2017-10-26T00:18:02-04:00Tags: |

Kota Kita Foundation, an Indonesian grassroots NGO, analysed its methodology for the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment through a gender-focused approach, as women are the ones who suffer the most from climate hazards and are not well represented in data and resiliency plans. The low levels of female participation and deficient gender-disaggregated data raises questions about cities’ resiliency plans and the lack of consideration of women’s important role in Indonesian society. Photo credit: Kota Kita Foundation

26 10, 2016

Driven To Dhaka By Climate Change Disasters, Bangladeshi Girls Harassed Into Marriage

2017-10-26T00:12:38-04:00Tags: |

Driven into cities after losing land, farms and crops due to climate change disasters, poor Bangladeshi families, in fear of sexual harassment, bad reputation and loss of honor for the family, marry off their girls at an early age, explains Shahana Siddiqui, a gender specialist at Dhaka’s BRAC University. This short documentary approaches two 14-year-old girls, originally from villages in Jamalpur, whose families had to migrate to the capital after they lost their farms to natural disasters. Watch the film to know more about Brishti and Razia, one already married and divorced and the other trying to postpone her marriage as much as she can, despite her father’s wishes. Photo credit: Thomson Reuters Foundation

26 10, 2016

Ghana’s Eco-Friendly Bamboo Bikes

2017-10-26T00:00:35-04:00Tags: |

Ghanaian women and young people are taking sustainable commuting to the next level by constructing custom made bicycles out of the local material bamboo, grown by local farmers. Ghana Bamboo Bikes woman CEO and founder Bernice Dapaah has met the highest standards of innovating and shaping just, sustainable, new economies. Each bike is 100% recyclable and for every bamboo plant used, another ten are planted. After training and employing 35 locals, including people with disabilities, Dapaah wants to relieve more unemployment by hiring another 50 locals while also growing the localized ecological economy she has created in her community. Photo credit: AP

26 06, 2016

Does Nature Need Space In Our Cities? Study Of Bengaluru’s Ecology Offers Answers

2017-12-26T16:02:57-05:00Tags: |

Harini Nagendra, an ecologist by training and professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru, has been studying biodiversity and ecology of different public spaces for the past decade. In her new book, ‘Nature in the City; Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future’, she takes her readers on an ecological journey of Bengaluru from an agricultural center to ‘concrete-ization’. She writes of the remnants of nature’s hotspots in the city and the deep bond between slum dwellers and nature. The book highlights the works of remarkable individuals and movements that are fighting for the rights of nature and saving Bengaluru from being grasped by the silent killer, ‘concrete-ization’. Photo credit: Harini Nagendra

26 06, 2016

The Women Behind Harlem’s Farmers’ Markets

2017-10-26T00:26:07-04:00Tags: |

In New York city, food markets that provide an alternative to commercial produce overwhelmingly cater to white privileged neighborhoods. In turn, low income areas are left with minor accessibility to healthy food. However, women are at the forefront of bringing healthy food markets to New York’s historically low-income neighborhoods. Sonya Simmons has been offering Harlem quality produce for 11 years by running the Grassroots Farmers Market. Martiza Owens helped teen mothers gain access to healthy food in the Bronx in 1993 and then went on to establish two farmer’s markets in the South Bronx. Today she is the executive officer of Harvest Home, bringing quality farmers markets to all five boroughs. Carey King of GrowNYC is also a leader in reinvigorating impoverished Harlem neighborhoods through healthy food. These women are literally partaking in sustaining the health of these communities. Photo credit: Patrick Kolts

31 05, 2016

Putting Gender Equality At The Heart Of The New Urban Agenda

2017-10-31T01:04:19-04:00Tags: |

By 2030, 60 percent of the global population is expected to live in urban areas. The New Urban Agenda is UN document that drafts a plan to dramatically rethink the way that cities are lived in and constructed today. UN Women Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri speaks about the link between urban environmental sustainability and gender equality and an argues that genuine green cities are not possible without a focus on women’s empowerment and equality within urban settlements. Photo credit: UN Women

31 05, 2016

Gender Inclusion Critical For Sustainable Urbanization

2017-10-31T00:41:26-04:00Tags: |

Women from UN-Habitat, Cities Alliance, the Huairou Commission and UN Women are putting gender on the of top their urban cities and climate change agenda. Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat Aisa Kaycira emphasizes the importance of empowering women and girls as the leaders of transformation on the New Urban Agenda, a UN framework which blueprints how cities can be transformed into sustainable urban spaces through women’s empowerment. The New Urban Agenda looks to center grassroots women as the principal agents towards sustainable urbanization. Photo credit: UN Habitat

7 05, 2016

Florence Robinson Protected Communities Of Color From Pollution

2017-07-20T17:54:25-04:00Tags: |

“Cancer Alley” is an 80 mile strip of land along the Mississippi River where low-income communities of color co-exist with petrochemical plants, hazardous waste incinerators, and landfills. Florence Robinson, a resident of Alsen and a biology professor at Southern University, organized her neighbors in order to dismantle a hazardous waste disposal pit in 1993. She is the recipient of a Heinz Award for her work against environmental racism. Photo credit: heinzawards.net

27 04, 2016

The Environmental Equalizer: Sudha Nandagopal

2017-10-27T03:04:07-04:00Tags: |

Sudha Nandagopal oversees Seattle’s Environmental Justice Initiative, a unique program that recognizes environmentalism is typically unequal in the distribution of benefits and burdens of policies. As a means of increasing equality and community-driven solutions, Sudha convenes a working group representing the interests of people of colour, immigrants and refugees, low-income, and limited-English individuals to participate in environmental decision-making. Photo credit: Bill Phillips

26 04, 2016

Metro Buses Converted Into Mobile Food Markets For Low-Income Neighborhoods

2017-10-26T00:02:13-04:00Tags: |

Women are taking economic and political leadership in Toronto by transporting quality food to low-income neighborhoods through mobile food markets made from reused city buses. FoodShare, a non-profit working with Toronto communities and schools to improve the quality of food for all people, has teamed up with United Way Canada and the city of Toronto to make the project possible. The mobile buses offer a selection of everything from onions to lettuce to apples, and travel to low-income neighborhoods twice a week, transforming the quality food accessibility in the Toronto region. Photo credit: Blackbuisness.org

18 04, 2016

This Baltimore 20-Year-Old Took Out A Giant Trash Incinerator

2017-10-31T15:40:13-04:00Tags: |

Baltimore is one of the most polluted cities in the United States, and the neighborhood of Curtis Bay is particularly afflicted by respiratory disease caused by industrial emissions. Upon learning of a proposed trash incinerator in Curtis Bay, Destiny Watford led a four-year campaign to halt the construction of this harmful incinerator next to many of Baltimore’s public schools. Photo credit: Doug Kapustin/The Washington Post

31 03, 2016

Scaling Up Community Resilience In The Shadow Of Chevron – With Doria Robinson Of Urban Tilth

2017-10-31T01:46:42-04:00Tags: |

Doria Robinson is the co-founder of the Richmond Food Policy Council and Executive Director of Urban Tilth, a grassroots organization from Richmond, California, that works with growing healthier and just food in a sustainable manner. Through her organization, Doria hires and trains community members to be able to cultivate 5% of their own food supply. She has experience with organic farms, permaculture design, gardening and nutrition, and through her work, advocated for healthier options with salads in every Richmond school, and also campaigned for accountability after the explosion of the Chevron refinery, which ruined the region’s crops. Photo credit: Transition US

31 03, 2016

Elizabeth Yeampierre And Allies Standing For Social And Climate Justice, Not Gentrification

2017-10-31T01:10:16-04:00Tags: |

Elizabeth Yeampierre is a former civil rights lawyer and dean at Yale, who currently leads an initiative called Uprose and participates in the Working Families Party and a labor unions’ coalition, both local organizations from the industrial waterfront of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York. Their goals are to revive the area, maintain it as a working and active place, make greener, more sustainable and climate-change resilient jobs, products and public spaces locally. Yeampierre has achieved quite a lot with these organizations, but reminds us that now the area is being scoped by big enterprises, who want to build a streetcar line until Astorias, Queens. These top-down projects are not on their best interests or commonly made, opposed to long-term community improvements and claims made by Yeampierre and other grassroots initiatives’ works at the waterfront. Photo credit: David Gonzalez/New York Times

15 03, 2016

Farm-To-Table Community Agriculture Led By Women

2017-07-19T21:28:08-04:00Tags: |

Leah Roberts, 37, sells produce from her farm to local Oregon residents and restaurants, an arrangement that falls under the umbrella of community-supported agriculture (CSA). Just this year, Roberts' Rockwood Urban Farm and about a dozen other CSAs started working with two local nonprofits to offer a new payment system that makes it easier for people of all incomes to purchase a CSA share. Photo credit: Pamplin Media Group, Jonathon House