Advancing Grassroots Women's Leadership for Community Resilience in Asia

The Huairou Commission is supporting grassroots women leaders from its active groups in Asia to come together for two reflective meetings next week, to build relationships and regional leadership capacity with a view towards developing a core grassroots leaders group in the region.  One meeting will take among South East Asian groups in the Philippines, and another in South Asia, hosted by Lumanti Support Groups for Shelter in Nepal.  In addition to building grassroots regional leadership within the Huairou Commission, the meetings will also serve to plan work in the region for the Resilience Campaign, following up on the Huairou Commission's Grassroots Academy in Cebu City, Philippines in 2008.  Leaders will contribute input to the development of the Community Disaster Resilience Fund and the ISDR Community Practitioner's Platform.

The South Asia Planning Meeting on Advancing Grassroots Women's leadership in Community Resilience will take place in Kathmandu, Nepal from February 8- 11, 2010. Lumanti Support Group for Shelter has kindly agreed to host this meeting. We will use this meeting as an opportunity to undertake grassroots network building and planning, following up on key developments in the Resilience Campaign in 2008/09.

These developments in the last year have created momentum and opportunities for us to scale up and strengthen our work in the South Asian region by expanding and consolidating our grassroots women's network. A learning and action network in the region is vital to our ability to build a strong, informed constituency of grassroots groups who can scale up solutions and press for development, disaster risk reduction and adaptation programs that reduce impacts of disasters and climate change on poor communities. 

The Huairou Commission together with Lumanti Shelter for Development are hosting this meeting to create a strategic plan for the region, design the Community Platform and expand the Community Disaster Resilience Fund. Participants from our network in Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan are attending this meeting.

In the Philippines, leaders will come from South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines to participate.  This space will be a unique opportunity for grassroots  leaders to communicate directly across several languages and cultures in order to build the kind of relationships necessary for active solidarity and for building a global movement in which grassroots women take on a full sense of ownership at the global level.  The meeting will enhance their regional work within the Resilience Campaign as well as develop the capacity of more grassroots leaders to participate fully on the global stage.