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.

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.]