Dear Friends,
Over the years, and increasingly so, folks interested in Global Grassroots have asked, “How does your work connect to the issues of climate change?”
With Earth Day approaching, we have been thinking a lot about this question. While Global Grassroots did not start as an “environmental” organization, we certainly believed (and continue to see) that the root causes of so many issues faced by the grassroots women we ally with are intertwined with their ecological contexts.
This became increasingly clear as teams began to focus on sustainable access to clean water as a strategy for addressing multiple barriers to wellbeing, from health and hygiene to gender-based violence to childhood nutrition to economic and educational inequality.
At our recent Wisdom Lab presentation, Women, Water & Wisdom: Mapping the Ripple Effects of Conscious Social Change in Rural Rwanda, we shared different ways that women changemakers are creating sustainable solutions to the challenge of water scarcity in their villages.
As the chart below illustrates, when teams create a water source that is clean, close to home, safe to access, affordable and available in the dry season, the interdependent processes by which community members experience positive changes in health, nutrition, gender equality, education, family harmony, economic well-being, and even infrastructure development are profound.