Amelia’s Magazine | Women of the Global South Speak Out

Women of the Global South Speak out about Climate Change.

The Ethiopian Community Centre on Thursday evening was a steaming melting pot bursting with real experiences and people willing to share them. Sheltered from a grizzly London evening, we gathered to listen to the stories of women from the global south with first-hand experience of the repercussions of climate change. From Guyana, India, Bolivia, Uganda, China, Iraq and America, all women were united in their concern for their governments’ failure to rectify the damage and the inertia they encountered from the Western world.

First to battle through the low hum of multiple interpreters was Wintress Morris from Red Thread from Guyana. From January to March 2005 Guyana witnessed the worst flooding in their history. 750, 000 people were affected. 300, 000 people in 110 villages were severely affected by region 4 standards, many made homeless. In January alone, the rainfall rose to 28 inches. It is normally 7.3 inches. The government put the flooding down to climate change. Looking weary and tired Ms Morris is resigned to the fact that while ‘the natural part of that disaster was real,’ it was ‘bad management and corruption’ that caused the social disaster that ensued.

The draining and irrigation systems simply could not cope with the extreme rainfall. Many people lived in almost total submersion with no relief help for 7 weeks. It was the women who did most of the work for survival, left at home in the diseased water to care for the elderly and children while the men left to seek help from further a field. Before the crises there were serious racial divides in Guyana, especially between the Afro and Indian communities. As a response to the government’s brutal apathy, women from all ethnicities banded together for the very first time. Wintress and other women formed the pressure group Red Thread. On 30th March 2005, their hard work had achieved a public announcement from Guyana’s MPs. 50 US dollars would be given to each individual home and 300 US dollars to every business affected by the flood. Although this is still not enough, it is a great triumph for the grass roots women who fought to make the change. Their struggle is not over however, the people of Guyana are still faced with poorly maintained canals that cannot control water flow, and Red Thread continue to fight.

Manju Gardia’s story was not dissisimililar and no more heartening. Her village in Chhattisgarh, India, was completely wiped out by two days and two nights of unprecedented rainfall. The rain started in the middle of the night pushing people into the darkness with no where to go. As women clutched onto branches with one arm, and their children with the other, their clay houses washed away. When the government stepped in, those rich enough to afford stronghold houses were taken care of first and compensation money hardly reached the poor who needed it most. Outraged by the unjust priority of the wealthy, Manju and other local women started rallying and protesting, and forced the government to provide more compensation. Their struggle against the corrupt authorities continues as does their fight against possibly the biggest threat to rural India; landgrabbing for the planting of crops for biofuels. Manju Gardia and the women’s groups are taking direct action by tearing the crops out of the soil with their hands.

Hannah Ibrahamin founded The Women’s Will Association in the aftermath of the US and British Invasion. Since the start of the war, Hannah has witnessed her country being ‘turned into desert-emptied.’ Her country has been used as a chemical playground, experimented on with anything nuclear and nauseating. One of the most horrific cases was the use of white phosphorous in Fallujah. Recently in the news for it’s use in Gaza, the chemical causes the skin to continue burning after impact and cannot be healed. 72% of the victims of the white phosphorous attacks were children, and to this day 20 children die each day in Fallujah from the after effects and radiation left by US bombs. Iraq has been left with an incomprehensible amount of damage. Stripped of anything resembling a habitable natural environment while we suck from it’s withered teat 2 million barrels (and rising) a day of that thick black treacle.

It was as if the tidal wave of the world’s injustice had crashed through the doors, filling this overcrowded hall off Finchley road with tainted water. I began to feel out of my depth, choked. Women from all parts of the world drowning in the same sea, and as Nell Myhand (the Hurricane Katrina representative) said simply ‘it is remarkable how similar the stories are.’.The event was organized by Climate Camp with speakers from Food not Fuel and Global Women’s Strike. All are activist groups who fight to bring environmental atrocities to our attention in the media-clouded west. I left overwhelmed and a bit depressed. But the integrity of each speaker and the sense of unity that swept the room gave me some hope. Maybe one day ‘climate justice’ will be reached. ‘The more we get together the stronger we are’ (Nell Myhand).

Written by Illustrations by Karolin Schnoor. Words by Lucy Jones on Tuesday February 10th, 2009 10:36 am

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