Please be welcome to join WECAN on International Women’s Day, March 8th for "Womxn Act for Climate Justice", a dynamic international network-wide event highlighting the struggles and solutions of womxn climate leaders in the WECAN network. During the interactive gathering, we look forward to sharing inspiring updates from WECAN regional coordinators and allies, as well as exploring some of our plans and vision for 2021 and how you can be involved.

More details about the webinar and speakers are down below. Please also continue reading this newsletter to learn more about our upcoming Delegations with BlackRock and global banks.

Womxn worldwide are continuing to call for a different path forward in 2021 and beyond as we reweave and forge a path onward in the midst of multiple crises, with global communities confronting the Covid-19 pandemic and intensified climate chaos, racism, gender and economic inequity, Indigenous rights violations, environmental degradation, and much more.

We are committed and steadfast in our collective and ceaseless fight for Indigenous rights, Black liberation, gender equity, rights of nature, true democracies, climate justice, and the protection of this planet we hold so dear. We are inspired by womxn and feminists who are leading resistance movements, building climate solutions, and re-imagining a future grounded in justice and care globally. The small window of opportunity for acting on the climate crisis is already upon us— now is the time for systemic change and building the just and healthy world we seek.

Why Womxn? for this event we chose to use the written word Womxn, which has roots in intersectional feminism, to uplift the varied and intersectional experiences of womxnhood globally. This is an inclusive space across identities and the gender spectrum.

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 [email protected].

Daiara Tukano is of the Tukano Indigenous people - Yé'pá Mahsã, clan Eremiri Hãusiro Parameri of the Alto Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, and was born in São Paulo. Daiara is an Indigenous activist and artist and has a Masters Degree in Human Rights at the University of Brasilia. She is also a researcher on the right to memory and truth of Indigenous peoples, and an independent communicator and coordinator of Radio Yandê, the first Indigenous web-radio in Brazil.

Neema Namadamu is a visionary peacemaker from Bukavu, South Kivu Province in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where she advocates for peace, women’s rights, rights for persons with disabilities, rights for Indigenous pygmy peoples, and Rights of Nature. She is Founder and Director of SAFECO, the Synergy of Congolese Women’s Associations and Maman Shujaa: Hero Women of the Congo, through which she has a established a media center for Congolese women to make their voices heard on the range of issues affecting their country. Neema also serves as WECAN International’s Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As WECAN DRC Coordinator, Neema leads workshops and trainings with local women to address deforestation, build women’s leadership, support Traditional Ecologic Knowledge, and protect the rich ecosystems of the Itombwe rainforest. In June of 2012 Neema was selected as one of three World Pulse journalists for their annual Live Tour of the U.S., where she spoke before the U.S. Department of State, the Clinton Global Initiative, and was interviewed by CNN.

Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation is a community leader, long-time Native rights activist, Environmental Ambassador, actress, and WECAN Project Leader and Board Member. As traditional Drumkeeper for the Ponca Pa-tha-ta, Woman’s Scalp Dance Society, Camp-Horinek helps maintain the cultural identity of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma for herself, her family and her community. She has been at the forefront of grassroots community efforts to educate and empower both Native and non-Native community members on environmental and civil rights issues She is a leader in the movement for the Rights of Nature.

Rebekah Sawers is an Alaskan Native Yupik Student and mother, daughter and aunt who lives in the Tongass and works with Indigenous youth in educational programs in Hoonah, Alaska. Her husband and daughter are Tlingit, and Rebekah is part of the WECAN collective of women who are working to protect the Tongass Rainforest.

Kari Ames is of the Tlingit Nation. She grew up and lives in Xuna Kaawuu (People of the North Wind) also called Hoonah, which is a small town of 800 people on Chichagof Island in Southeast Alaska. Her Tlingit name is Dee Yaa, and she is Yeil Raven moiety of the Lʼuknaxh.adi (Coho Salmon Clan) from the Frog House. Kari is currently working for Alaska Native Voices as a Cultural Heritage Guide in Glacier Bay National Park. She is deeply involved in her culture — weaving the past and the future together, living and learning as much as she can about her culture including traditional singing, drumming, hunting and gathering of plants. Kari is part of the WECAN collective of women who are working to protect the Tongass Rainforest.

Carmen Capriles of La Paz, Bolivia started Reacción Climática in 2010, as a volunteer organization which aims to raise awareness about the impacts of climate change on the Andean region. She has actively participated in different UN processes like the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement, with special emphasis on women's rights and gender equality - and most recently in the Escazú Agreement, advocating for Environmental Defenders. Carmen holds a degree from Bolivia as an Engineer in Agriculture, as well as a degree in Sustainable Rural Development from Egypt.

Monique Verdin is a daughter of southeast Louisiana’s Houma Nation. The complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate and change have inspired her to intimately document Houma relatives and their lifeways at the ends of the bayous, as they endure the realities of restoration and adaptation in the heart of America’s Mississippi River Delta. Monique is the subject/co-writer/co-producer of the award-winning documentary My Louisiana Love (2012). Her interdisciplinary work has been included in an assortment of environmentally inspired projects, including the multiplatform/ performance/ ecoexperience Cry You One (2012-2017) as well as the publication Unfathomable City : A New Orleans Atlas (2013). Monique is a member of Another Gulf is Possible; and is director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange; an experiential project engaged in building a community record through cultural happenings, strategic installations and as a digital archive, sharing stories, native seeds and local knowledge. Photo by Andy Cook, via Another Gulf Is Possible.

Karina Gonzalez is a Xicana born to Mexican-indigenous parents. Raised in LA’s San Fernando Valley, she found her passion for environmental justice experiencing the first-hand effects of environmental racism in LA and directly witnessing the effects of climate change in her family’s hometown in Michoacan, Mexico. She studied Environmental Studies at the University of Arizona and Forestry at Northern Arizona University. Karina has worked for Greenpeace USA, Black Mesa Water Coalition, SustainUS, Friends of the Earth and currently also works for Climate Justice Alliance. Karina was a recipient of the 2016 Brower Youth Award, the leading national environmental award for youth. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, PBS, and other news sources.

This March, BlackRock representatives will meet with Indigenous women leaders and partners, as part of two engagement opportunities organized by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), to present information on aligning with the Paris Climate Agreement and addressing human and Indigenous rights issues and policies.

In December 2020, BlackRock published a report outlining its new guiding expectations for company engagement in 2021, including several notable changes to its policies on environmental and social factors. The report states a strategy that includes aligning BlackRock investments and financing with the goals and targets set forth in the Paris Climate Agreement.

The workshop engagements will offer valuable insights on the significant impact of extractive industries on local and Indigenous communities. Several key issues will be considered including the links between financing for deforestation-risk commodities and climate change, the impact of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in Indigenous communities, the operationalization of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, impacts in extraction zones to affected women, and how sustainability and human rights policies can meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Learn more in the press release here.

Michelle Cook (Dine’/Navajo), Human rights lawyer and Founder of Divest Invest Protect, USA

Throughout the month of March, WECAN, BankTrack and other partners are co-organizing and facilitating several high-level workshops for international financial institutions that will focus on policies and practices regarding Indigenous rights, deforestation, fossil fuel extraction, and how financial institutions can align with the Paris Climate Agreement and, in fact, exceed it (with the critical understanding that the Paris Agreement is fully insufficient to meet the scale of the crisis and does not address climate justice). The workshops also provide banks the opportunity to share their experiences and view points as well.

We are working with several partners and are very honored that the workshops focused on Indigenous rights will be Indigenous women-led with the leadership of Divest, Invest, Protect and the Indigenous Human Rights Defenders and Corporate Accountability Program (IHRDCAP) currently housed at the University of Arizona School of Law.