Women Rise Up to Tackle the Water Crisis

By Rhyen Coombs, World Pulse. Posted April 1, 2008.

The following is a podcast for World Pulse Magazine.

I'm Rhyen Coombs, and I'm speaking with Melinda Kramer, founding director of the Women's Earth Alliance in Berkeley, California. The Women's Earth Alliance unites environmental advocates working to solve problems like water access and sanitation in their communities, by providing connections, resources and training.

This alliance grew out of the Women's Global Green Action Network, which Melinda co-founded in 2005. Melinda has worked with grassroots organizations around the world on issues of environmental justice, sustainable local economies and indigenous rights. Today, she is also the communications and outreach coordinator for the Natural Capital Institute. Melinda says her work is about creating spaces for people to come together, breaking isolation and tapping collective wisdom to create social change.

Rhyen Coombs: Melinda, how do you see community-based women's groups taking part in the global water movement?

Melinda Kramer: I see community-based organizations playing a huge role in the global water movement, primarily because in many ways, women are really on the front lines of issues around water and sanitation; especially community-based women who are responsible for getting clean water and making sure the water is available, bringing it back to their families and providing for their communities. It's really essential that women have the tools they need, and the information they need, and the connections that they need to ensure that that water is available. By default, women are on the front lines of this issue, and seeking opportunities for more access to information, more access to technologies, and more access to their right to water.

RC: So, tell me a bit about your organization, the Women's Earth Alliance. What role is it playing in the water movement?

MK: Women's Earth Alliance is a global organization that links women working in environmental sustainability from around the world. And we provide opportunities for women to exchange resources, share best practices, build alliances around various environmental issues, and really amplify the voices of women around environmental sustainability. In particular, we have a focus on water because women are so inextricably linked to issues of water. And the role that we play is to provide spaces, whether they're virtual or face-to-face, opportunities for women to convene and share what they're learning and what they know and the challenges that they're coming up against around issues of water.

RC: What are the most innovative programs or activities you're seeing around water and sanitation today?

MK: Where I get excited is where there are community-based initiatives that empower in particular women with the technologies and the tools to transfer safe water projects into their community that are also income-generating, so that women as water keepers -- playing the role that they have always played -- have an opportunity to provide that source to their community while also creating a livelihood for themselves, so that they're bringing abundance into their community while also bringing abundance into their own home.

RC: Can you tell me more about who's on the front lines of these initiatives?

MK: We are creating a conference in June that is a partnership effort of a number of organizations because we find that these organizations are really -- they're implementing the solutions. They're modeling the solutions. We are working with GROOTS Kenya. They really specialize in women's collectives and cooperatives and have a lot of experience in local community-based water efforts. We're also working with the Green Belt Movement. The Green Belt Movement has also done a number of community-based projects on water. Finally, we're also working with an organization called A Single Drop. A Single Drop is actually based out of the Philippines, and they've worked with women in particular around water and sanitation projects. Crabgrass is another great organization, a small international human rights organization that specializes in conferences around women and water.

RC: Melinda, you mentioned the conference coming up in June. We'd heard that your African Women and Water Conference was supposed to be happening this month in Nairobi, but that it got pushed back. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Who are you expecting to take part, and what do you have planned?

MK: I'm so excited about this initiative. In many ways, it's unprecedented what we're putting together. We originally planned the conference in March, but we've pushed it back to June, because of the political turmoil in Kenya.

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Rhyen Coombs is a freelance reporter at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is pursuing her master's degree in journalism with a focus on new media. She is an associate editor with World Pulse.

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