Your invitation to join us From The Fields

This Sunday, a group of 13 women delegates will travel to Delhi, India to learn, connect, share and strategize with Indian women who are leading the way in sustainable agriculture development. Among this group there are economists, biologists, academics, authors, permaculturalists, and urban farmers. Together, we will launch the first key phase of WEA's Women and Agriculture Initiative.

A lot can happen when smart and passionate women get together over a common cause. Join us here to hear about their journey. They will send posts from their travels and we’ll learn about what they see, smell, hear and taste.

Add us to your daily routine, subscribe to our feed, and email our blog to your friends. We are all going to India on Sunday.

View Larger Map

Coming Up from the Roots: another full house!

Last night more than 75 people gathered for the second of three events in WEA's Fall Speaker Series Coming Up from the Roots. It was dry and warm inside during the Bay Area's first storm of the season. And the room was full of environmental leaders, fellow tenants of the David Brower Center, social justice activists, WEA Giving Circle members, friends, family and one 2 year old.


This group gathered to learn more about WEA's Women and Land Initiative, and to hear from four inspiring leaders:

• Vien Truong of Green For All: Vien spoke about the critical need for working across sectors to create green jobs. She invited people to get involved, and you can learn more about her critical work forging a nationwide green jobs coalition here.
• Wahleah Johns of the Black Mesa Water Coalition and WEA's International Advisory Board: Her stories about passing legislation in the Navajo Nation for green jobs were inspiring! The focus, determination, creativity and sheer person-power to make that happen is humbling. You can read about it here.
• Nina Simons of Bioneers. Nina talked about the power of women and what it means to be a woman leader. And that it's Bioneers' 20th year of convening social and environmental change leaders... Click here for more information about this year's conference this weekend.
• Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society. She sang us a song that could be felt in our bones. It was a beautiful and peaceful way to end an evening.

Our next event in this series, the final one of the season, will be held Tuesday, November 10 at 7pm. This will be a very special evening with Joanna Macy, a long time supporter of WEA and a member of our International Advisory Board. RSVP here.

Back Row: Kevin Connoley, Vien Truong, Melinda Kramer, Caitlin Sislin, Amira Diamond, Wahleah Johns, Adrienne Maree Brown, Jihan Gearon, Billy Parish, Tohaana. Front row is Stacy Ho and Nina Simons.

Wahleah Johns and Adrienne Maree Brown

WEAving Words

"If we can make small-holder farming more productive and more profitable, we can have a massive impact on hunger, and nutrition, and poverty."

--Bill Gates
2009 World Food Prize Symposium
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation


Learn about WEA's newest initiative-- the Women and Agriculture Initiative, which will work to equip Indian women farmers with training, business skills, networking support and seed funding to launch sustainable agricultural micro-businesses across India.

WEAving Words

"As indigenous people we’re still fighting for protection, for cultural survival, fighting to protect our sacred and holy places. Although it has always been in the interest of the government to annihilate or assimilate indigenous peoples, we’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere. And we’re continuing to share our traditional ways and traditional knowledge with our young people because it’s important for us to survive, for our cultures to survive, for our futures to survive.

We are all indigenous, no matter where we’re from or what our heritage is, whether we’re from Asia, Africa, South America, North America -- it is a matter of recognizing that root and recognizing our ancestry.

The basis of all indigenous cultures is respect and harmony, and living within your environment in a harmonious way, and one that is respectful and understanding that the earth is our Mother and she takes care of us and nurtures us. Everything we need to be a healthy people is here, is provided for us by our Mother Earth. It’s just a matter of recognizing and remembering who we are.

And we also need legislation!"

-- Jeneda Benally, Save the San Francisco Peaks Coalition, from our Fall 2009 Conference Call Series: San Francisco Peaks: Legal Advocacy for Sacred Places

Please stay tuned to the Women's Earth Alliance website to hear a recording of this powerful one-hour conference call featuring Jeneda Benally and Howard Shanker, attorney for the Save the Peaks Coalition.

The time is now

It's an exciting time to be doing what we're doing here at Women's Earth Alliance. Economists, world leaders, and policy experts alike are beginning to recognize the central role of women to community health and economic stability. A recent New York Times article said:

"Only a small proportion of aid specifically targets
women or girls, but increasingly donors are recognizing
that that is where they often get the most bang for the buck."

President Obama appointed a new White House Council on Women and Girls, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a recent interview "women and girls" are a "signature issue" of the administration's foreign policy. During her tour this month through Africa, Clinton stated,

"Until women around the world are accorded their rights
and afforded the opportunities of education, health care and gainful employment,
global progress and prosperity will have its own glass ceiling."

Check out these articles:

• Clinton Global Initiative - at their Annual Meeting last week they added a new focus area for Women and Girls. Read more here.

• New York Times Magazine - they dedicated a whole issue to what they called 'The Women's Crusade' which can be read here.

• Half the Sky - written by two Pultizer Prize winning journalists, and an anchor article in the NYTimes Magazine issue above, this book is a call-to-action to invest in and support women and girls

WEAving Words

"... I have presented these arguments for a purpose. To illustrate that that these are very common issues for women, not only for Indigenous women, but for all women. What befalls our mother Earth, befalls her daughter -- the women who are the mothers of our nations. Simply stated, if we can no longer nurse our children, if we can no longer bear children, and if our bodies, themselves are wracked with poisons, we will have accomplished little in the way of determining our destiny, or improving our conditions.

And, these problems, reflected in our health and well being, are also inherently resulting in a decline of the status of women, and are the result of a long set of historical processes. Processes, which we as women, will need to challenge if we will ultimately be in charge of our own destinies, our own self-determination, and the future of our Earth our Mother."

-- Winona LaDuke. Co-Chair Indigenous Womens Network, Program Director of the Environmental Program at the Seventh Generation Fund, at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China, August 31 1995.

Read her full statement here.

[This is the first of many quotations from allies and visionaries that we plan to share from time to time. The words we share inform and inspire our work. If you come across something that should be included here, please let us know.]

WEAving the Worlds Call Series: Green Jobs

On September 29 we held our first conference call in our Fall 2009 WEAving the Worlds Call Series:

The Navajo Green Jobs Victory and the State of U.S. Green Jobs Policy.

21 women leaders at the cutting edge of green jobs policy development participated in a conversation with two fascinating leaders in this field: Elena Foshay of the Apollo Alliance and Wahleah Johns of the Black Mesa Water Coalition. Wahleah spoke about her work on Navajo Green Jobs - click here for an interesting piece about it in the LA Times - and Elena spoke about her work on the federal level and the stimulus package (here is more about that).

This is an area full of opportunities and hopes as well as challenges. Wahleah spoke about the challenging process of getting council leaders to support green jobs because they are so accustomed to a coal-based economy. And Elena described how the real front line of green jobs is at the state/ local / regional level, and she highlighted some of the current green jobs victories at the state levels. Click here to learn more about what the Apollo Alliance has achieved in Oregon.

Interested in learning more? Participating on the next call? Email Caitlin Sislin at caitlin(at)womensearthalliance.org.

A little blogging history

This isn't WEA's first blogging experience.

In September 2008, Women’s Earth Alliance convened a delegation of public interest women attorneys from across the United States for a journey of listening, witnessing, and preparation for action. Through ten days of travel and experiential learning throughout the Southwestern United States, our delegates discovered firsthand the ways in which America’s domestic energy policy sits largely on the backs of Native American lands and communities. Through dialogue and site visits, we learned about challenges facing these communities including coal and uranium extraction poisoning the soil and water, coal-fired power plants polluting the air, and open-pit mining and recreational facilities desecrating sacred mountains.

And we blogged about it! Click here to read our Advocacy Director’s blog about the trip.

Intrigued and want to learn more about this journey? Also be sure to watch the short video by Marlo McKenzie of Sacred Land Film Project, or learn more about the environmental justice leaders we met.

Call for nominations! West African women leaders

We are looking for West African women leaders who are working for water security, health, and environmental sustainability in their communities.

The Global Women’s Water Initiative (GWWI) is a joint venture of international organizations A Single Drop, Crabgrass, and Women’s Earth Alliance. The GWWI equips two-person teams of local African women leaders with technology training, introductory business skills, networking support, and seed funding to launch water service projects in their communities that have the potential to become income-generating.

The 2010 West Africa Program is in partnership with WaterAid Ghana and will include a week-long training to be held near Accra, Ghana in late February, 2010. Attendees will create and commit to specific action plans for the year following the training. The GWWI team will provide seed funding and follow-up support for each team to implement a water project.

For more information and the application form click here or email us at womenandwater(at) gmail.com.

70+ gathered for Coming up from the Roots event

Last night we held the first of three events as part of our Up From The Roots, Weaving the Worlds speaker series. And it was a huge success! We gathered at the Brower Center with over 70 people and we danced, ate, drank, listened, hugged, and learned together. It was a special night full of inspiration and hope.

We had the good fortune of listening to Ashwini Narayanan talk about the power of women and the potential of microlending to change the world. Her organization, MicroPlace, is truly aligned with WEA's vision and we hope to move into deeper partnership with microlending institutions like Microplace as our work deepens. Ashwini is a fantastic spokesperson for our work and we are very grateful for her efforts to support us. For those that weren't able to attend, you can watch the video we shared with women’s stories last night here.

Join us on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 7pm for another inspiring evening. The second event in our Fall Coming up From the Roots series will focus on our Women and Land Initiative, which unites legal and policy advocates with indigenous women environmental justice leaders towards sacred sites protection, energy justice and environmental health. WEA International Advisory Committee member Wahleah Johns, Executive Director of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, will be in conversation with Vien Truong, Senior Policy Associate at Green for All about the recent historic Navajo Green Jobs victory and the national green jobs movement. Learn about the Sacred Earth Advocacy Network and its support for this crucial work from WEA's Women and Land Initiative Advocacy Director Caitlin Sislin, and be uplifted by a selection of songs from Ruckus Society Executive Director Adrienne Maree Brown.

Here is info about our next event.