Ursula Rakova
“My name is Ursula Rakova. I come from Papua New Guinea, but I was born on the Carteret Islands in the Southwestern Pacific. My elders and my community have given me a huge task, to tell the world what is happening on my island and what climate change is doing to destroy our lives. My work involves organizing our people and moving them from the island to the mainland where we need to re-locate to safe and secure ground. We are being forced from our ancient island homeland to the mainland of Bougainville Province in Papua New Guinea where we must start new lives and find sustainable means to produce our food and survive. I want to make sure that my people have a future life for generations to come. I would say to people who believe that climate change is not happening, if you have...
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It’s about the women who live with the effects of climate change every day.
Women who see high tides destroy their food supply and submerge their homes. Women who watch a merciless cycle of unprecedented floods followed by droughts drown their children, wash away their livelihood, and then suck their crops dry again. Women who pick up the pieces, improvise solutions and, facing their very survival, carve out unconventional paths to leadership.
Climate Wise Women is a global platform for the promotion of women’s leadership on climate change. Through powerful personal narratives, Climate Wise Women gives a human face and voice to an issue that sits squarely at the nexus of the conversation on gender equality, environmental justice, food security, the eradication of extreme poverty, and public health.
Climate Wise Women presents public ‘conversations’ between women community leaders from around the globe at colleges and universities, for community and business groups, and at major world events on climate, climate justice, and gender equality, that engage both panelists and audience members alike. The Climate Wise Women, a rotating group of distinguished international community activists, share their compelling stories with those of local women leaders in an interactive format that brings home the very real connections between the developed and developing worlds.
Our goal is to deploy the time-honored art of storytelling at its most powerful level and make a significant contribution towards a global movement for climate justice and sustainable community.
In 2010, women from Biloxi, Mississippi, the Cook Islands, and Uganda spoke at 16 different events in North America. Last year the Climate Wise Women completed a European speaking tour and were featured at events at the UN General Assembly in New York in September and at the COP 17 in Durban in December. This year sees the Climate Wise Women hosting events at the Council on the Status of Women and at the Rio+20 and welcomes two new Climate Wise Women from the Maldives and Nigeria.
The Climate Wise Women is a proud project of the Earth Island Institute www.earthisland.org
Climate Wise News
Climate Wise Women at Rio+20
June 16 — Sinal do Vale – 10:00 – 18:00
Women Networking for Sustainability: Celebrating the Past & Envisioning the Future
June 17 – Barra Arena, UN2 – 17:30 – 19:00
Bringing Climate Finance to Grassroots Women – What does it take?
June 20 – Ford Foundation Tent at the People’s Rio+20,
Rio+20 and Women’s Lives: A Cross-Generational Dialogue
June 21 — Rio Centro – 10:00 – 13:00
Rio + 20 Partnership Forum: Partnerships for Advancing Gender Equality and Sustainability
June 22 – US Center – 12:30 – 14:00
Women in Natural Resources Management
Please visit our calendar page for full information about Rio+20 events and other upcoming speaking engagements.
We welcome the arrival of Zikaan Shahyn, baby son of Climate Wise Woman Thilmeeza Hussain!