Please be invited to join the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) on Thursday, May 28 for our upcoming webinar, "Structuring an Economy for People and Planet in the Time of Climate Crisis and COVID-19”. During this dynamic dialogue women and feminists from different regions of the world will unite to discuss alternative economies that counteract extractive economic systems, colonization, racism, and patriarchy— and instead visibilize women’s labor, center Indigenous knowledge, and prioritize people and planet. There could not be a more important time to ensure we do not go back to business as usual.
As unemployment severely rises, food and housing are under further threat, oil prices plummet, and
some governments insist on bailing out the fossil fuel sector and other destructive industries instead of people and nature— the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the already existing severe cracks in our global economic system. What is needed now is investment in economies founded on principles of justice, reciprocity, and regeneration. Learn more about this vital interactive discussion and how to participate down below!
Structuring an Economy for People and Planet
In the Time of Climate Crisis and COVID-19
Thursday, May 28, 2020
11:00 am PST/ 2:00 pm EST USA time
Please check your own time zone to coordinate!
|
|
Rooted in neo-liberal capitalism, the current economic system is set to continue to rapaciously extract resources from the Earth and drive the dual crises of climate chaos and pandemics, while exploiting the labor of people worldwide to line the pockets of wealthy CEOs, fossil fuel companies and other large corporations. As we see disaster capitalism play out in real time, we must dismantle the current system and call for a regenerative, rights-based economy that prioritizes communities and nature.
An integral part of the fight for climate justice is rejecting false market-driven "solutions." This includes the effort to expose and dismantle the roots of the extractivist economy that is inextricably intertwined with the patriarchal system that has been exploiting women and the environment for centuries. Women are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic,
making up 70% of healthcare workers worldwide and the majority of unpaid care workers who bear the brunt of a broken economic system.
We are calling for a transition from a colonial paradigm of “exploit and extract” to a regenerative, globally-conscious one of “respect and restore.” What is needed now is an investment in alternative economic models predicated on community-led solutions, Indigenous knowledge, and ancient concepts of reciprocity with the Earth and all living beings. Already there are Indigenous economies to learn from and an emergence of socially just, place-based, caring economic models that are structuring a path forward.
Speakers include:
Melina Laboucan-Massimo (Lubicon Cree First Nation), Programs Director, Indigenous Climate Action;
Ruth Nyambura, Kenyan Activist with African Ecofeminist Collective;
Cindy Wiesner, Executive Director, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance;
Ellen Brown, Attorney and Founder of the Public Banking Institute;
Rauna Kuokkanen (Sápmi) Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Studies at the University of Lapland, Finland; and comments and moderation by
Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).
|
|
REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, please register here:
To ensure the security of our participants and speakers we ask that you register for the webinar via Zoom, which we encourage so that you may participate in the conversation and ask questions and make comments. If you do not want to register, you are welcome to join us on Facebook, where we will be streaming the event live.
If you need support registering or have any questions, be welcome to reach out to katherine@wecaninternational.org.
|
|
Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Lubicon Cree First Nation
Programs Director, Indigenous Climate Action
Canada, Turtle Island
|
|
Melina Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta, Canada. She is the founder of Sacred Earth Solar and the Campaign Director at Indigenous Climate Action. She has worked on social, environmental and climate justice issues for over 15 years. Melina has worked, studied and campaigned in Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Canada and across Europe focusing on resource extraction, climate change impacts, media literacy, energy literacy and Indigenous rights & responsibilities.
Melina is the host of a new TV series called Power to the People which documents renewable energy, food security and eco-housing in Indigenous communities across North America. She is also a Fellow at the David Suzuki Foundation with a focus on Climate Change, Indigenous Knowledge and Renewable Energy. Facing the firsthand impacts of the Alberta tar sands in her home community, Melina has been a vocal advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. For over a decade, Melina worked as a Climate and Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada and the Indigenous Environmental Network. She has written for a variety of publications and produced short documentaries on the tar sands, climate change, water issues and Indigenous cultural revitalization.
|
|
Ruth Nyambura
Kenyan Activist with African Ecofeminist Collective, Kenya
|
|
Ruth Nyambura is a Kenyan eco-feminist and researcher working on the intersections of ecological justice in Africa. Her work and activism uses a feminist political ecology lens to critically engage with the continent’s and global food systems; challenging neoliberal models of agrarian transformation and amplifying the revolutionary work of small-holder farmers of Africa (most of them women), as well as rural agrarian movements offering concrete anti-capitalist alternatives to the ecological, economic and democratic crisis facing the continent.
|
|
Cindy Wiesner
Executive Director, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, USA
|
|
Cindy Wiesner, a 25-year veteran of the social justice movement in the U.S. and internationally, is the executive director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance. She’s been active in many movement building initiatives, including Climate Justice Alliance, World March of Women, Social Movement Assemblies, International Council of the World Social Forum, Fight Against the FTAA, UNITY, Building Equity and Alignment Initiative and, currently, It Takes Roots and the Rising Majority, Green New Deal National Network and People’s Bailout. Her main passions are training organizers in a transformative radical organizing model and building counter-hegemonic campaigns that not only fight what participants are against, but put into practice what they want to see manifested. She identifies as a lesbian and is of Salvadoran, Colombian and German descent. She is a grassroots feminist, internationalist, and movement strategist.
|
|
Rauna Kuokkanen, Sápmi
Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Studies,
the University of Lapland, Finland
|
|
Rauna Kuokkanen is Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Studies at the University of Lapland, Finland. Prior to that, she was Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Toronto (2008-2018). Her main areas of research include comparative Indigenous politics, Indigenous feminist theory, Indigenous women’s rights and Arctic Indigenous governance and legal and political traditions.
Professor Kuokkanen’s new book Restructuring Relations: Indigenous Self-Determination, Governance and Gender, forthcoming by Oxford University Press in 2018, is an Indigenous feminist investigation of the theory and practice of Indigenous self-determination, governance and gender regimes in Indigenous political institutions. She was the founding chair of the Sámi Youth Organization in Finland and has served as the Vice-President of the Sámi Council. She has also long worked and advocated for the protection of Sámi sacred sites, particularly Suttesája, a sacred Sámi spring in Northern Finland. Professor Kuokkanen was recently appointed as the Chair of the Arctic Program Committee of NordForsk. She is from Ohcejohka/Utsjoki, Sápmi (Finland).
|
|
Ellen Brown
Attorney and Founder of the Public Banking Institute, USA
|
|
Ellen Brown is the founder of the Public Banking Institute and the author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. She developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In the best-selling Web of Debt (2007, 2012), she turned those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust,” showing how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves and how we the people can get it back.
Ellen ran for California State Treasurer in 2014 with the endorsement of the Green Party garnering a record number of votes for a Green Party candidate. Learn more about Ellen Brown at
http://EllenBrown.com.
|
|
Osprey Orielle Lake
Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), USA
|
|
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future.
Osprey serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and New Economy, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."
|
|
If you would like to share this webinar with your networks, please use either of the buttons below to take you to our Facebook event page or our website.
|
|
Thank you and we hope you can join us!
|
|
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network is seeking several new "Women Speak" Research Interns to join our dynamic team of women working for climate justice, systemic change and women's leadership in climate change solutions.
|
|
May 20: People's Assembly on BlackRock
|
|
The day before BlackRock's Annual General Meeting for shareholders, frontline leaders, elected officials and activists will discuss solutions to BlackRock's climate, deforestation, and human rights problems.
As the world’s biggest investor, BlackRock is also the world’s biggest owner of fossil fuel companies, largest drivers of destruction in the Amazon rainforest, and contributes more to climate change than almost any other company on earth. For more event details and to register please follow this link:
https://www.blackrocksbigproblem.com/peoples-assembly-on-blackrock
|
|
20,000 Masks Have Been Delivered to Indigenous Communities in the U.S.
|
|
WECAN is honored to announce that the first round of 20,000 face masks have been delivered to Indigenous communities throughout the United States through the Protect the Peoples Emergency (PPE) partnership fund with Movement Rights, Indigenous Environmental Network, T.E.J.A.S, Eaton, and other organizations.
As reported by one of our partners, Sebi Medina-Tayak of Eaton, “We have shipped most of the masks out to Navajo, Ponca, Apache, Oglala, Hopi, Piscataway and Houma clinics and organizations in this first round.”
|
|
For the Earth and All Generations,
Women's Earth and Climate Action Network
(WECAN) International Team
|
|
S T A Y C O N N E C T E D
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
