small tools, BIG transformation.

By Maame Yelbert-Obeng (Africa Program Director) with support from Kaitlin Swarts (2011 Intern)

The Africa Team is back from Uganda!

This month, we welcomed back the Africa Team from the 2011 East African Women and Water Training in Uganda.  This was our third Global Women and Water Initiative (GWWI) Training, following the 2008 and 2010 Trainings in Kenya and Ghana.  GWWI began in 2008 as a collaborative venture between Women's Earth Alliance, A Single Drop, and Crabgrass and is currently a program of Women's Earth Alliance in partnership with Crabgrass. In line with our values of recognizing the importance of home grown and locally-led solutions, GWWI builds partnerships with Africa-based organizations and African women trainers to undertake its training programs. In Uganda, we worked alongside a Uganda-based organization, iCon Women and Young People’s Leadership Academy, to amplify the voices and inclusion of grassroots women in the WASH sector.  Furthermore, GWWI knows the power of building alliances with men, and our training programs invite men to support this vision.  The GWWI Trainings create a space for women to connect, engage in dialogues around leadership and climate change, and develop specific technology skills to address issues of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

In 2011, GWWI featured two complementary trainings—the Advanced and Grassroots Trainings—over a two-week period from July 4-18.  We were thrilled to have some former graduates from 2008 participate in the 2011 East Africa Training as trainers-in-training.  We also welcomed 10 Fellows—four East African women and six international women—to offer peer support and in the process, enhance their knowledge and understanding of WASH-related issues. The Advanced Training laid the foundation for the strategies that were explored in the Grassroots Training.

Thirty-two women from communities across Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya, joined the 24 women from the Advanced Training in the Grassroots Training. Over the course of the week, the women learned hands-on WASH technologies, engaged in group sessions, and upon completion of the Training, received seed grants to support the implementation of water projects in their communities. The teams of women representing their communities came to the Training having conducted a basic needs assessment to determine the appropriate technologies to address WASH needs in their communities.

Building on past trainings, participants focused on various aspects of WASH, including sanitation, water access, water quality, and alternative energy.  In addition to studying the theory behind these technologies, women learned to construct a ventilated improved pit latrine (or a VIP latrine), a rainwater harvesting system, a biosand filter, and solar cook kits. They also learned games designed for community sensitization and to improve hygiene and sanitation habits. The VIP latrine helps to improve sanitation by providing alternatives to open defecation and poor disposal of human waste, while the rainwater harvesting system allows for the collection and storage of large quantities of rainwater that can be accessed year-round. Biosand filters remove harmful bacteria from water, and the solar cook kits can be used for a variety of purposes, including cooking and pasteurizing water for drinking. The African continent is blessed with incredible natural resources like the sun.  Our hope is that the solar cook kits will optimize the abundance of this resource, and in the process, promote the well-being of women and girls who otherwise would be spending their time out of school and walking long distances to collect water and fuel facing the risk of violence.

Ventilated Improved Pit Latrine

Rainwater Harvesting Tank

Biosand Filter

Solar Cook Kits

Investing in women transcends beyond hands-on skills and access to resources, to creating spaces for women to re-define gender roles and build their confidence and self-esteem as whole women leaders. The steps to building the water technologies enable women to break the stereotypes of women's capabilities and allow women to identify with roles beyond that of mothers and caretakers, to non-traditional ones such as carpenters, masons, and technicians.

Our time together in Uganda also allowed for dialogue around the direct impacts of climate change on women and girls, as well as the access to and quality of water. Out of this dialogue came ways in which women can draw upon their leadership, knowledge of technology, and support networks to respond to the environmental challenges they face. 

As women remain at the helm of collecting and allocating water for various uses, it becomes even more critical to listen to their voices and apply their wisdom to designing efficient and effective solutions to water-related issues. 

As the participants of the 2011 East Africa Training continue on this year-long program, they will implement two WASH projects with their target communities and with support from GWWI, the Trainers, and the Fellows. The Women and Water Trainings is one of several strategies in the larger response to the varying impacts of climate change on women and girls. We cannot wait to see how our partners in East Africa will build alliances with more women, girls, and men to begin a process to transform their communities!

Take Action Today!

Support the protection of a Northern Arizona holy mountain

Northern Arizona ski resort Arizona Snowbowl has begun the construction of a 14.8 mile pipeline that will trasnport up to 180 million gallons of treated sewage water from the City of Flagstaff to the ski area, for artificial snowmaking.

Not only will the proposed 10 million gallon wastewater pool harm the environment and public health (the treated sewage water has been proven to contain contaminants), but it will destroy land that is holy to more than 13 Indigenous Nations.  The peaks are their place of worship, where deities reside, and where they go to collect medicine and herbs.

Klee Benally, who was arrested on Saturday August 13 for disorderly conduct and trespassing, explains: "How can I be 'trespassing' on this site that is so sacred to me?  This is my church.  It is the Forest Service and Snowbowl who are violating human rights and religious freedom by desecrating this holy Mountain."

With just a few minutes, you can take meaningful action to protect the Peaks.  Call the USDA, which oversees the Forest Service, and let them know you support the preservation of this sacred mountain.


Take Action:

1. TODAY: take 5 minutes to call Tom Vilsack of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to urge the USDA to place an administrative hold on all development of the SF Peaks. Phone: (202) 720-3632
2. THURSDAY: show your support by participating in the Protect the San Francisco Peaks Protests in Vallejo, CA 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm.  Meet at the Pacific Southwest Regional Forest Service Office: 1323 Club Drive, Vallejo, CA
3. Contact Flagstaff City Officials and urge them to respect the environment, Indigenous culture, and protect public health by finding a way out of their contract to sell Snowbowl wastewater.  Phone: (928) 779-7699 Email: council@flagstaffaz.gov

A Trainer-in-Training shares her story from the 2011 East African Women and Water Advanced Training

The following blog post was written by Advanced Training Participant Nansubuga Immaculate.  Immaculate is a Trainer-In-Training at the 2011 East African Women and Water Advanced Training in Kampala, Uganda, where she is training to become a Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) practitioner. She has come to the training from Katosi, Uganda, along with two other women from her organization, Rose and Mastuula, who participated in the Grassroots Women and Water training.  You can read Immaculate's inspiring story below.

Nansubuga Immaculate (in pink hat) at the 2011 GWWI Training in Uganda.

While at work, my boss sent me a link to the 2011 Global Women’s Water Initiative (GWWI) East African Women and Water Training in Kampala, Uganda and encouraged me to look it up and apply. Honestly, it took me a whole week to visit the link. But when I did, I just knew I could not miss out on this opportunity. Prior to the training, I believed that I was not a whole woman leader, even though my profession required good leadership traits. Despite this, I wanted to attend the GWWI training because I considered it a great opportunity to elevate my Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) skills and bring positive change to the Mukono community, especially among the women from Katosi Women Development Trust (KWDT).  The action-planning component of the Training appealed to me. I have always wanted to know how to make an action plan and be able to implement the strategies from start to finish. Despite my keen interest, I questioned my ability to contribute to and qualify for the 2011 GWWI Training. After all, I had never attended a GLOBAL conference before.

Despite my fear, I was selected to be a participant (Trainer-in-Training) of the first annual GWWI Advanced Training Program, where I joined an amazing group of women leaders from around the world to discuss water and sanitation issues that threaten East Africa. During the training, I yearned to be a loud and strong speaker, but I realized that I am soft-voiced. Thank God for the Personal SWOT  [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis. Through this exercise, my leadership style was realized, and I gradually understood that my weaknesses are another’s strengths and that working together makes our impact stronger. I am now content with my communication skills. I am soft-voiced, but firm and eloquent, which is an added advantage while facilitating trainings, interviews, and the one-on-one conservations that I facilitated during the Grassroots Training. Using my new-found strengths, I discovered that though quiet of voice, I can still be a strong lobby for rural communities to achieve equal development.

Katosi Women Development Trust (KWDT) selected Rose and Mastuula to attend the 2011 Grassroots Training in Kampala. Mastuula and Rose saw the training as a great opportunity to learn to construct a Biosand Water Filter (BSF) to increase access to clean water in women-run households throughout the Katosi District. At the training they stood beside their East African sisters, affirming that women are the water stewards in their communities and have to stand up and act for themselves--especially widows. Women should stop self-pitying themselves because it is a strong contributing factor to under-development in rural communities. Through the training, they embraced the power of collective sharing, working in sisterhood with participants from communities throughout East Africa to change attitudes and negative behaviors of communities towards water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

At the training, we learned that it is crucial to consider and integrate all community stakeholders and their needs when establishing any new water project. We covered sessions on climate change, leadership, WASH and appropriate technologies. The climate change sessions really resonated with me. In my community, climate change and its impacts are gradually affecting the livelihoods of the rural people. Their economies, health and environment are dwindling. The last long dry spells early this year affected agricultural productions and contributed to scarcity of water. Three KWDT women’s cows died and over ten were infected with diseases. The reduction in food productivity led to malnutrition, and scarcity of water increased poor sanitation--especially in schools and communal centers. My team identified the need for our community to be sensitized and made aware of the climate change impacts, mitigation, and adaptation techniques.

And to achieve my team’s WASH vision of “increased accessibility to clean safe drinking water in rural households,” we have to use an inclusive and participatory approach.  My team wants to achieve this big vision of all rural women living healthy lives and empowered to participate in economic, social, and political development processes. We also want to be free from dependency and achieve self-supply of not only WASH facilities, but also what the world offers for a better change among rural women.

So, this training is a big step to achieving our goal. Though this is a big challenge ahead of Katosi Women, we have to put the fears aside and stand strongly to achieve this.

Thanks to Gemma, Jan, Maame, Debbie, Beth, Women’s Earth Alliance, iCON, Crabgrass, the GWWI participants, the strong communities and NGOs for enabling us to take this step.

EEEEEE….. WOMAN EEEE…!!!

Saving the San Francisco Peaks

The San Francisco Peaks

Plans are underway to lay down 14 miles of pipeline up to the top of the San Francisco Peaks where a 10 million gallon wastewater reservoir will be created to generate artificial snow. Why? To increase the number of annual skiable days at Arizona Snowbowl.

The Peaks, which rise to 12,000 feet above Flagstaff, Arizona at the Western edge of Navajo lands, are regarded as a sacred place to thirteen indigenous tribes in the Northern Arizona region.

The Hopi believe that ancestral kachina spirits live atop the mountain, and cause the rain and snow to fall—and that natural snowmaking cycles may cease if the kachinas witness humans manufacturing snow. Yavapai-Apache Chairman Vincent Randall describes the San Francisco Peaks as one of the "sacred places where the Earth brushes up against the unseen world.” And the mountain’s traditional Navajo name is Doo'ko'oosliidd, which means "Shining On Top," and has traditionally been accessed by medicine men for the collection of herbs for healing ceremonies.

The ski area, which was originally built in the 1930’s and expanded significantly in 1979 despite protests and lawsuits, has been the site of years of struggle for tribes including the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, Hualapai, Yavapai Apache, and White Mountain Apache.

Opponents of the wastewater plan filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the National Environmental Protection Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. The case moved through the courts until a 12-judge 9th Circuit Court ruled that the artificial snowmaking system was innocuous because Navajo tradition is merely a “subjective spiritual experience,” thus not entitled to legislative protection.

Citizens filed a second lawsuit asserting that the federal government did not properly and adequately review the potential environmental and public health risks associated with the use of artificial snow. In December 2010, U.S. Federal Judge Mary Murguia ruled that the U.S. Forest Service did, in fact,adequately consider the safety of using reclaimed water to generate artificial snow. Murguia’s December 2010 decision is now on appeal before the 9th circuit.

The San Francisco Peaks are to the Colorado Plateau tribes what the most revered sanctuaries are to people of Western monotheistic traditions: a holy place. To contaminate the Peaks with the artificial snowmaking system would be equivalent to building a 10 million gallon sewage pool on the floors of Westminster Abbey. Can this be considered a “subjective spiritual experience”?

One activist explains her reaction: “This last court decision for us told us that our cultural belief, our spiritual belief, is not a valid religion—it’s subjective spiritual feelings. For traditional people who have grown up with our identity and who carry on these ways of life since the beginning of time and want to ensure that our children have these spiritual connections as well, to be told that your ways of life, your culture, is a spiritual subjective feeling, is one of the most painful feelings that I think anybody could ever feel. That you believe, what your ancestors have fought for, what they’ve carried on, what they’ve died for, is not valid.”

Stay tuned to www.truesnow.org for updates on the efforts to protect the Peaks from contamination.

Scenes from the 2011 East African Women and Water Training

The 2011 East African Women and Water Training in Uganda has concluded, and what a success it was!  We invite you to take a look at photos from these inspiring two weeks:



Be sure to check back in with us---we will be posting more on the Training soon.  We can't wait to share with you all of the behind-the-scenes stories!

10K and one week to go to meet our 150K match from the 2011 Gala!

Dear Friends,

The train keeps on moving at Women's Earth Alliance, but we want to take a moment to remember the previous stop: our 5-Year Anniversary Gala, Unlocking the Future. The night was a resounding success; we raised our voices, we laughed and celebrated, no one's car got towed, and thanks to the generosity of our attendees and sponsors, we came within $10,000 of reaching our $150,000 match for 2011. We have a short period of time to complete this challenge. Please jump on the train with a contribution today, either online or by check to Women's Earth Alliance, 2150 Allston Way, Suite 460, Berkeley, CA 94704. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar!

Read more about the Gala, see photos and watch videos here. 

When Women Face the Music, We All Get To Sing

This week WEA is featured in HuffPost Impact's article "Changing the Channel From Fear: When Women Face the Music, We All Get To Sing."  The post includes an interview with WEA Co-Director Melinda Kramer.

Leah Lamb writes, These women are facing straight into the challenges of their communities and are finding ways to live in the celebration that comes with addressing issues straight on.

Read the article to learn more about what inspires Melinda to invest in women environmental leaders around the world and what WEA is up to now.

WEA Interview on Women Rising: National Radio Project

National Radio Project recently interviewed India Program Director Rucha Chitnis, Africa Program Director Maame Yelbert Obeng, and GWWI Director Gemma Bulos for its Women Rising radio program.

Click here to listen to the interview and learn more about women's rights to water, land, and farming.

"Women are realizing that they are carpenters; they are masons who are hitting these nails, building these rainwater harvesting systems. Women were mixing the concrete and putting the cement in to build Ecosand toilets.  We became technology people. We became lab people. We were able to use our versatility as women."

        -Maame Yelbert-Obeng on the 2010 West African Women and Water Training                                                             

Coming Soon: WEA Advocacy Training, November 4th-6th

North American indigenous communities face both acute and chronic challenges resulting from environmental degradation.  In response to the systemic and intentional targeting of indigenous lands and communities for environmentally-destructive industrial projects such as mines, hazardous waste facilities, oil refineries and coal-fired power plants, the indigenous environmental justice movement – a grassroots-led movement with national impact – has arisen within the past several decades to demand sustainability and equity.

WEA’s North America Program links our Advocacy Network of pro bono legal, policy and business advocates nationwide with indigenous women leading grassroots environmental campaigns in North America.  

This November, WEA will host its first ever Advocacy Training, “Building Capacity for Strategic Collaboration on Indigenous Environmental Justice.”  In solidarity, leaders in environmental and indigenous advocacy will come together to:

Learn :: Hear from leading activists and advocates on best practices for protecting land and health, and advancing renewable energy on Indigenous land.

Connect :: Build a community of collaboration with the rapid response WEA Advocacy Network and long-term Working Groups.

Act :: Map advocacy strategies using proven and emerging tools.

Be sure to check back with us as we get closer to November, and in the mean time, click here for more information!

Get on Board!

Unlocking the Future, WEA's 5-Year Anniversary Gala on May 18th was a beautiful gathering of our friends and allies. We extend gratitude to those who attended and to all who have joined us over the past five years--it's been an incredible journey so far! 

Scenes from the celebration:



The WEA team opens the night with a song:




Africa Director Maame Yelbert-Obeng's opening speech:



Co-Director Melinda Kramer's speech:



Co-Director Amira Diamond shares her words:



Kavita Ramdas, former CEO of Global Fund for Women, shares her inspiring words and song:



2010 African Women and Water Participant Catherine Mwengella talks about the impact of WEA on her community:



Environmentalist, activist, and writer Paul Hawken shared inspirational words about unlocking the future by moving from 'me' to we."




Together, we continue to unlock a thriving future...and we hope you join us! For more photos and videos from the Gala, click here.