Feminist International Radio Endeavour/October 2005
Campaign
"Between
women, with affected communities"
Fact sheet & background
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This Campaign is an appeal to share what we have, no matter how little
or much, with women who live the devastation produced by natural
disasters. We are asking that feminists, their organizations and any
person and institution who wish to contribute to woman-to-woman
support, -make cash contributions from his/her own pocket and their
institutional budgets so as to strengthen women in the communities
affected by natural disasters in Guatemala.
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We hope this initiative will be reproduced for women in El Salvador,
Southern Mexico and Pakistan, and wherever else is needed.
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By coincidence, this campaign started on October 13, 2005, which is
International Day for the Reduction of Natural Disasters, so
designated by the UN and to be celebrated each second Wednesday in
October, by Resolution 56/191 of the General Assembly on the 21st of
December as a “means to promote a world culture of natural disaster
reduction, which includes prevention, mitigation and preparation
efforts”.
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This is a woman to woman campaign, inspired by the images of the
survivors and the devastating impact on indigenous communities in
Guatemala, as seen in the media.
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It was inspired by the reportsmade by women communicators in Guatemala
(La Cuerda), and community radio programs made by women of the Mujeres
al Aire (Women of the Air) Network
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It was inspired by the words of Guatemalan Mayan Carmen Victoria
Álvarez, from the indigenous women organization Kaqla, when she spoke
at the 10th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Congress
about feminism and ecology, referring to the urgent need of feminism
address their relationship with indigenous women and their
surroundings
Nature of “natural” disasters
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Neither the currents of
El Niño and La Niña, nor Hurricane Mitch in 1998 nor more recently
Hurrican Stan, are very “natural” phenomena. This is well known.
Global warming of the Planet because of carbon dioxide emissions as
well as deforestation and pollution produce reactions from a planet
that searches rebelliously and desperately to rebuild its own harmony.
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Desertification is the
gradual transformation of habitable land into desert land because of
destructive uses or due to climatic change. In the whole world, of
each 230 acres of land , 138 acres, or 36 million square kilometers
(22.4 square miles) are in the process of degradation in the world
because of the loss of forest or desertification.
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James
Lovelock and Lyn Margullis discuss the concept of “GAIA,” which
recognizes that Planet Earth does not have life on it, but that it is
life. It is a living unit, a self organized organism that in its
millions of years of history has had the capacity to survive,
producing and reproducing its own balance. It does this by means of
expelling from its womb the species causing its imbalance. Thus, it
is not the earth’s survival which is threatened, but that of humanity.
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Feminist scholar,
Elisabet Sahtouris warned at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in
1992, that “ Many have come to talk in a protectionist mode about the
need to save the Earth. They say they are here in this conference to
see what they can do for her. But many people and communities, mostly
indigenous, know that behind their “altruism” hide huge interests to
control the last frontier: natural resources that haven’t yet been
exploited on the Planet. It is not GAIA, it is we who will not be able
to keep on living if the excessive pillage to turn everything into
exploitable resources continues” (FIRE, 1992).
The Sense of Urgency
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Carmen Victoria Álvarez
knows and reminded us about this urgent situation when she referred to
the subject in Brazil at the 10th Feminist Encounter. And
at the time she was addressing us, the indigenous poor populations of
her country, Guatemala, were facing havoc caused by Hurricane Stan.
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The CONRED (National
Coordinator for the Reduction of Disasters) reported recently that the
hurricane caused 508 deaths, 97 injuries, 337 missing (other sources
mention up to 1,000), 97,872 displaced persons, and 84,949 lodged in
255 shelters.
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Other official reports
indicate that in southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and other
Central American nations, Stan caused about 600 deaths, as well as
1,563,250 injured by the rains: Just two days after, the numbers
reached 3 million injured and vast areas of devastated.
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The images in media of
women, girls and boys, and older women and men suffering during a
disaster were the most compelling, which helped the audience
understand an important part of the impact: the more visible which is
expressed in pain, trauma, vulnerability of the more affected sectors,
the loss of lives and the ecological desolation which surrounds and
affects all forms of life that once were able to thrive in those same
zones.
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This kind of media
coverage plays an important role because they help activate “ethics of
caring,” solidarity, and generosity and in the best of cases, social
responsibility of all as people and community, and of the governmental
and non-governmental entities in the aftermath of such events.
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But often, behind media
these images and messages are hidden realities that also need to be
brought to light. One of them is the “gender factor”, which is
sometimes the most invisible of factors. According to Elaine Enarson
“… gender makes up the social world, which greatly shapes the impact
of natural disasters. The sense of urgency consists of recognizing
that our social links and relations are highly relevant in the face of
immediate needs and strategies in the aftermath of natural disasters”.
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Specialists
on the subject state what women already know but is rarely diffused in
the media: “The structure of gender relations is part of the social
and cultural context that provides the capacity of a community to
anticipate disasters, be prepared to survive them, to face them and to
recover from them” (UN, Interagency Secretariat for International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2002).
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Elaine Enarson also
states that “Given the magnitude of a disaster, economical, political,
socio-cultural contexts and the integration of gender in policies and
measures for reduction of disasters translates into identifying the
place that women and men have in society. This allows for the
provision of an effective idea, not only of the different ways in
which the lives of women and men can be affected, but also of the ways
in which they can contribute to the efforts of reduction of impact”.
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Nonetheless, in a 2002 report of the
Gender Program of the World Conservation Union, named “Forgotten
Heroines: The Role of Women in Natural Disasters,” it stated that: “In
spite of the crucial role women play in mitigation, preparation and
recovery in natural disasters, this role is generally not seen or is
ignored. However, history shows that when disasters hit, women assist
in recovery”. (UICN)
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On the other hand,
parallel to the invisible leadership of women is also the fact that
women are more deeply affected by natural disasters. Women are
disproportionately affected by policies that address disasters,
precisely because of their gender role in society.
Towards a feminist strategy of solidarity
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A
feminist perspective highlights that the political-social formula that
pervades in almost every social fiber of any community, shows that
women take care and men decide, with not very beneficial results in
general.
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For reasons that are
obvious for those who understand the gender factor and power
inequality, women are rarely placed in formal roles of responsibility
for natural disasters, but most of the time it is their job to clean
up others’ disasters, without participating in decision making and
being invisible in their leadership for recovery.
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When humanitarian aid
after disasters flows exclusively through the already established
structures in the affected zones, almost always in the hands of men
and masculinized organizations, too many times the opportunity is lost
to position aid strategically, that is, channeled through the social
tissue rapidly knit by women after these same disasters.
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Women care, repair, and
prepare food from whatever surrounding resources are yet available.
They pay emotional attention to victims, give first aid, and
reconstruct a minimal social, communal, and family network for
survival, be it in shelters or other locations, as well as organizing
funerals, mourning and search for missing persons, etc.
We need to:
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Strengthen women’s
organizations in fostering their local and national capabilities in
communities, to face the causes of disasters which continue and will
continue devastating many populations, too often those which are the
most vulnerable in our countries.
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Contribute to the
creation of a model of “woman to woman” support that will give us
trust in the fact that women, far from being only vulnerable, are
builders of proposals for prevention and reconstruction.
Examples in the region
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The Pan American Health
Organization has recognized the role played by Central American women
after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Women in Guatemala and Honduras built
homes, dug wells and channels, hauled water and built shelters. They
took an active role which was not acknowledged.
Examples given by the Pan American Health
Organization:
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As an answer to the
higher levels of gender violence in Nicaragua after Mitch, the NGO
Puntos de Encuentro organized an information campaign that used
different means to communicate a simple message: “Violence against
women is a disaster that men can prevent”. The campaign proved to be
effective for a change of behavior of men related to violence against
women.
Co-sponsors of this
campaign:
·
Gender Program of UICN
·
Association of women in
Development –AWID
·
Global Fund for Women (GFW)
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Feminist International
Radio Endeavor – FIRE
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For more information on how
to support this initiative, contact:
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Use this information to make your own reports and promote the campaign
giving credit to FIRE in
www.radiofeminista.net
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