How can listening to rural women in Zimbabwe (and everywhere) help shape a safer, healthier world? How do the experiences of women who survived the devastation of a cyclone improve understanding of climate change? How might games build knowledge and solidarity in the movement for climate justice?
These are some of the questions that arose as ACT Ubumbano and the Women’s Network for Environment and Climate Action (WONECA) explored ways to bring the voices of women in Chimanimani district, Zimbabwe, into activities to promote feminist climate justice in Southern Africa.
WONECA worked intensely for three years with women in one of the districts worst affected communities by Cyclone Idai, which also caused devastation across Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar. After the emergency response was over and in the aftermath of COVID, WONECA women’s groups continued to track the ongoing impacts of the cyclone. Through focus group discussions and civic education, they explored not only the loss and harm women suffered but the ways in which they were marginalised in decisions about relief and recovery efforts. They documented how this led to girls and women’s needs being overlooked. They also recorded stories of girls and women being discriminated against and even abused by people who controlled access to aid and resources for rehabilitation. As women shared their experiences, WONECA documented their ideas and insights for a gender-sensitive and inclusive approach to climate crisis preparedness, response and mitigation. What would be done differently, they asked, if climate disasters were seen through a feminist lens?
This process revealed how communities make sense of changes and challenges. It unearthed a wealth of information about the adaptive capacities of communities using indigenous knowledge systems. It showed how this knowledge played a huge role in the local response to Cyclone Idai but was not recognised. The bare truth was that women were left out of planning because of patriarchy. WONECA wanted to globalise local expertise and to bring women together in solidarity through their different experiences of a worldwide climate crisis. Instead of the top-down approach of policy-making, they wanted to show how work on the ground is critical to realising the lofty targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. They wanted to demystify the terminology and deconstruct the statistics used by elites to lock women out of decision-making.
WONECA Director Juliet Gudhlanga had written up the lessons, described the activities and highlighted the women’s stories. She and ACT Ubumbano agreed this was not material for a training manual, a handbook or a ‘toolkit’. It needed to be turned into a set of activities that would get people listening, learning and collaborating. And so emerged – well it is still emerging – the Feminist Climate Justice Compendium. This will be a box set of games focused on moving from climate crisis to a safer world. It brings knowledge and stories from women of Chimanimani into activities exploring environmental and gender justice.
ACT Ubumbano is in the process of hosting materials-testing workshops with a cross-section of potential users of the Compendium. The purpose is to ensure the content and activities are relevant, clear and easy to use, and enjoyable. Two half-day workshops have been held in Johannesburg and Durban. Community based organisations, cultural workers and students from the environmental, gender and economic justice sectors gave valuable feedback on the content and presentation. See some of the feedback below:
‘Some of the topics are heavy and it is great to be able to approach them in a light way, through games.’
‘The activities make complex ideas clear enough so you could even discuss them with children.’
‘It is helpful to be able to discuss climate justice issues together. Every activity started a conversation.’
‘We had such fun, laughing about our different interpretations of terms.’
‘It really made me think about how you can know something and battle to express it.’
This is being used to make the games as meaningful and accessible as possible to a diverse audience.
