For those who don’t already know, Project Drawdown is a “world-class research and communication organization which serves as a non-partisan, non-commercial, highly-trusted source of solutions to reverse global warming.” They came up with 100 such solutions; the relevant point for this conversation is that the three solutions relating to women, taken together, comprise the number one most empowering solution of all! This is according to Paul Hawkin, the head of this project. They are:
Educating Girls – providing equal quality of and access to education to girls/young women currently being denied access, leading to improved livelihoods, delayed onset of marriage, delayed childbearing, and fewer children than peers with less education.
Family Planning – scaling-up voluntary family planning efforts, including access to contraception and reproductive health resources, especially in countries where the unmet need for contraception is high or current demand is low, leading to the decline in total fertility rates.
Women Smallholders – providing resources, financing, and training to women smallholder farmers around the world, leading to improved agricultural yields and therefore reduced deforestation rates.
I encourage you to create opportunities to parse this with your circles, networks, gatherings of friends, faith groups, etc. See what you can come up with as far as how you can support these efforts. Let me know what you learn.
Also, The Drawdown Initiative is a series of on-line workshops that “supports you in finding your unique contribution to reversing global warming.” Please consider signing up.