It is high time to turn the tables and let the people talk. That’s what I
realized when Mahila Housing SEWA Trust (MHT) first invited me to talk to some
women leaders from slums in Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India) on the issue of Climate
Change. A talk which I thought would be quite easy turned out to be a daunting
task when I realized I was talking to women who had no idea of Global Warming,
Scenario Projections, not even Greenhouse Effect. And yet they were the ones I
knew are to be the most affected by the impact of the changing climate. So I
did what I knew best, asked the women what they were experiencing about the
changing weather conditions. And voilà, the women not only knew what was
happening, but were in their own ways developing mechanisms to cope with
it. It was very individual specific, often based on traditional
knowledge, but it was working for them. This got me thinking, if just
experience could help a group of women to fix so many problems, what could they
not do if they had the requisite scientific knowledge, capacities and
technologies. Can this be a way to develop actionable adaptation plans? To get
solutions which are demonstrated on the ground, and which the world of poor
will be ready to adopt because it would seem so real, so near to them.
I think the answer
definitely is a YES.
BUT, and it’s a
big but, how do we actually transfer this scientific knowledge to them. Climate
science, is a very technical subject (or maybe we have made it so) and it felt
very difficult to transfer the science to the lesser literate or often
illiterate women. Again there is the complexity of inter-linkages and
inter-connectedness between various issues, which needs to be understood before
one takes decisions. A simple solution like a pond- which may seem very environment
friendly and helpful in ground water recharge can be actually not so useful if
the region is going to have high heat waves and thereby high evaporation rates
and worst could be disastrous if the water pathways are highly contaminated
especially with sewage and other solid waste as we could end up contaminating
the ground water aquifer. This needs multi-disciplinary approach and so we
needed a multi-disciplinary team to work together with each other and with the
women to help them devise the most useful solutions.
AND, here came
another challenge. Sectoral experts are often very possessive about their own
subjects and not so open when comes to deviating from their said hypothesis. So
it was important to develop a common framework which they could work on. This
is easier said than done as we did not know how to develop this “COMMON”
framework. That’s where I though the women could take the lead and they did. We
exposed the women to the sectoral thinking, provided them with a few
participatory tools to go back to their communities and understand the nuances
and within a fortnight they were back, talking one-on-one terms with the
experts, getting them on track if they deviated, suggesting localized/cheaper
versions of technical solutions and working towards a common goal of people’s
“LIVELIHOOD”, because that is at stake. As one Meenaben put it, “This is
just about explaining to the community that what we should do now so that we
can continue to live like this (read maintain this lifestyle) in the coming
years also.” Such a simple definition of resilience and now we will be
working jointly towards building capacities for the same.
So how did this
happen and so soon. Does it provide some lessons for others? It definitely did
for me. Firstly, I think it is important to begin work with communities which
already have a higher social capital, preferably groups which have worked on
governance issues before. They have a perspective and understand the necessary
riggings to pull through such a complex problem. It also helped that the group
we are dealing with has a previous experience of using GPS and mobile
technology in their work. Secondly, women having a larger stake show higher
acceptance of tougher decisions. Our women were talking of water meters and carbon
tax for vehicles- quite radical considering we are talking of slum communities
here. Thirdly, when you talk of adaptation, the solutions are getting designed
from a mitigation perspective also. This surprised me, by the way, but it seems
easier when you are talking of protecting people to get them to protect the
environment. Even though we did not think so the women were talking of
bio-diversity and the need to conserve the same in cities. Also, there are many
solutions already existing on the ground, a lot of traditional (and even
modern) knowledge available which we need to document and invest in for
scaling. The communities have a lot to learn from each other and this becomes
very fruitful when we get people talking who now are facing opposite climate
conditions. So we had women from Jaipur and Ahmedabad (traditionally water
scare areas) teaching water management techniques to women from Ranchi (which
has high rainfall but is now becoming water scarce) while the latter
reciprocated with their traditional knowledge of combating heat stress. And the
last but not the least, there was the benefit of developing localized cheap
coping mechanisms which can have multiple affects. I would end with this simple
solution shared by the women, “Cover your roof with wet paddy husk and enjoy
a cooler home. Buy it before the summers and sell it after the first rains and
get most of your money back. It is simple, effective and affordable.” There
have been many strong technical suggestions too, our sectoral experts now have
a lot of work on their hands, customizing these for adoption, but they are very
enthusiastic, as they know, this time people will also listen to them, as they
are listening to the people.
By Dharmistha
Chauhan, Strategic Advisor to Mahila Housing SEWA Trust. Dharmistha is a
development consultant with 15 years of experience working in India for
promoting Sustainable Livelihoods of women, farmers and informal sector
workers.
