Women Making History In Climate Change – ‘We Can't Wait For Anybody To Give Us Permission’

We will remember these women. Quietly, under the radar, one decision at a time, women across the globe are tackling climate change in their local communities and improving their lives and economies.

As we bring Women’s History Month 2023 to a close, it’s important to highlight women who are making history today, who are making a pivotal difference, with creative ways to address their communities’ challenges.

Here are five women across the globe doing extraordinary work to mitigate climate change, one day at a time:

· Rosemary Atieno of Women Climate Centers International described on Electric Ladies Podcast how WCCI is solving every-day challenges in climate-friendly ways. She told a powerful story of how they helped a community eradicate cholera, get safe drinking water, and generate income. “We have this community it's called Odeo community. Odeo community is a community that we got in when the number of cholera cases was just too high, just too high. So, when we got in, we started with the attitude change process. We took them through attitude change. How positively do you think about yourself? What are the issues in this society? Is there a way you can really change this? Must it be done by an outsider? So, we took them through this process, regard the data about the cholera, the waters sources that they were having, the income situation of women, the number of widows. Then we came up with a list of priorities of five key things that needed to be done in this community.”

“One of the things that needed to be done was to have a better water source for drinking. Another thing was to try and raise the incomes of widows in the society to be able to attend to their children.” Through a series of steps, including leveraging partnership, WCCI transformed the community.

“In no time we realized we had too much money in the community that we could not control. So, we had to ask a local bank to be able to come in and help the community manage this money. In the process, our children are now going to school. The community is totally transformed. It's a different community. All because of sitting together, talking to the community, changing the way they think about themselves and helping to think positively about themselves in the process.”

· Zainab Salbi is Cofounder of Daughters For Earth, Founder and former CEO of Women to Women International, and author of the best-seller, “Between Two Worlds.” She explained why she added climate action to her work empowering women around the globe this way in our interview: “I co-founded Daughters For Earth, (which) is a collaborative effort between philanthropists and climate activists and women's rights activists, to get together and pull our act together to mobilize women and to put more resources into the hands of women.”

She is driven by the fact that “70% of who are going to be impacted by climate disasters, such as displacement and food security are women.” In doing her work, she realized that, “women are actually pivotal in some two major solutions for climate change, which is to protect and preserve 50% of the earth, and to shift to regenerative agriculture or agriculture techniques that put as much good in the earth as takes away from it.” Yet, women are being left out of the decision making tables and are not reaping the economic benefits. “And so we go into the same story, it's the same pattern, and we've got to change it.”

“We are here to change it…I do believe that we can change the narrative when it comes to women in climate change. As a matter of fact, I really believe in the power of women standing together, uniting and getting the job done. I have witnessed it over and over and over again. And, you know, we can't wait for anybody to give us permission or whatever. We get the job done, we're going to get the job done.”

· Rose-May Lucotte, Cofounder and Chief Operations Officer of ChangeNOW, herself a woman making history driving environmental and social change – told me about a few of the 25 women who they named “Women Shaping the Future 2023”. Here are two:

· Heïdi Sevestre, Ph.D. of France, is a glaciologist, a fellow international of The Explorers Club, who works at the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Working Group to the Arctic Council. Lucotte, also from France, described her this way on an upcoming episode of Electric Ladies Podcast: “Heidi Sevestre is a pioneering glaciologist whose field-based research and studies of glaciers worldwide have been transformative in understanding the effects of climate change. Her dedication to science outreach is reflected in her lectures and documentaries, where she communicates her findings and explains the impacts of climate change to the general public. Her work inspires many to take action toward a more sustainable future, and her focus on science communication is crucial in ensuring that the public is aware of the pressing issues facing our planet.”

Lucotte described Sevestre as very “passionate” about “really trying to make science accessible to anyone. I mean, she's one of the scientists who want to fill the gap between the science world, scientific world, and I mean, everyone, because now we have to be more connected.”

· Adenike Titilope Oladosu, Founder/Executive Director of I Lead Climate Action Initiative, of Nigeria, is another woman ChangeNow included in their Women Shaping the Future 2023. The ChangeNOW site says “She's a fellow of the Panel on Planetary Thinking and received the Amnesty International Nigeria ambassador of conscience award.”

Lucotte described Oladosu as “the Greta Thunberg of Africa.” “She's a very young activist feminist also and she's trying to protect and raise awareness on the Lake Chad, which I think it disappeared by 90%. We don't really know about it, but it is a catastrophe in Nigeria. And so, she raising a awareness on this….and she's trying to find solutions also to restore this lake.” Lucotte added that Oladosu “became like one of the most influential African activists. Very inspiring.

There are millions of women doing the hard work in fields and homes and offices and labs addressing the climate challenge every day, making history today. It’s important to honor them now, while they work.

Happy Women’s History Month