Claudine Alley, general manager at the JN Foundation, and member ombudsman, The Jamaica National Group is encouraging more women to be advocates for the environment. This is due to their increased vulnerability to climate changes.
The JN Group has found that women still have a strong spirit of advocacy. However, we need to encourage it more. She said that we need to encourage women to speak out and tell their truth, regardless of how unpopular it may be.
She was speaking to the International Women’s Day Luncheon, organised by United Way of Jamaica. The theme was “Gender Equality Today to a Sustainable Tomorrow”..The AC Hotel in Kingston hosted the event.
She stressed that climate change is real, affecting many people’s economic livelihood, but particularly women, who are more vulnerable to rising temperatures and their subsequent impact on sea-level rise, extreme and frequent climatic phenomena, and therefore negatively impacted.
Statistics over the years have shown that women are more vulnerable to natural disasters that are large in scale.
According to UN data, nearly 70% of the world’s 1.3B poor are women and girls. 40% of urban poor households are headed by single women. They are also responsible to as high as 80 percent of the world’s food production, and they own less than 10% of the land, making them more vulnerable to climate change.
According to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Jamaicans are less poor than Jamaican women. However, men are slightly more likely to be poorer than women. The Caribbean Policy and Research Institute reports that three quarters of Jamaica’s poorest residents are women. Ms Allen cites this as evidence of their vulnerability.
Ms Allen said that despite the vulnerabilities of women and girls their voices are underrepresented. She also said that their extensive knowledge and expertise in resource conservation and the environment is not fully utilized.
She mentioned that The Jamaica National Group encourages advocacy through The JN Circle- a network service clubs for JN Members that focuses primarily on building community resilience across 14 parishes in which the clubs are located.
We launched the JN Circle. There are 18 JN Circle chapters on the island. They work together in clubs to create change for something happening in their community. If the proposal is sustainable we will fund it.
The JN Circle has enabled members to take part in projects that strengthen community capacity and social infrastructure. She stated that they discovered that women and girls are responsive to community needs and become natural champions.
According to the JN Foundation general manager, these clubs work to improve the lives of the people on the island. Among other issues, these advocacy issues include: intimate partner violence; meditation; and keeping the peace.
She also stated that she had learned through the Water Adaptation ProjectIn the recent conclusion, women were included in the encouragement of water adaptation technologiesto address water management concerns related to climate changes in Jamaica.
The project was launched in 2017 by the JN Bank and the JN Foundation. It is a joint collaboration of the JN Bank and the JN Foundation, Climate Investment Funds, the Climate Investment Funds, the Climate Resilience Pilot Programme (PPCR), and the Inter-American Development Bank.
