Climate Resilience

Ineza Umuhoza Grace, Global Coordinator and co-founder of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition, first experienced the effects of the climate crisis at an early age when her family home in Rwanda was destroyed due to intensive rainfall and wind.

In the luscious and fertile green hills of Cauca in southwestern Colombia a coffee farmer and indigenous women’s rights activist works tirelessly to improve the lives of her community and tend to the land where her family is from. Libia Armida Paz lives in La Sierra on the El Oso reserve, a village home to the indigenous Yanakona people. Libia began farming coffee at seventeen years old, against her father’s gendered expectations. She took on a job on her neighbor’s farm in secret, sneaking out every morning before her father woke. She was paid 300 pesos less than the adult workers to pick coffee, but she didn’t mind because the experience was worth it. She studied tirelessly, saving money she earned from working on farms to attend college and earn a nursing degree. She saved enough money over a 15-year nursing career to buy her own land—something most women are…

After a five-year struggle, AJWS grantee Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project (ProDESC) secured a major win in June when federal energy authorities in Mexico announced they had definitively cancelled a massive energy project slated to be built on the lands of an Indigenous community. The project — “Gunaa Sicarú” — was awarded to a French utility company, and would have been one of the biggest wind energy parks in Latin America, built to supply power to private companies. This could have been a positive evolution for clean energy in the region — if the corporation had not trampled on the rights of Indigenous communities that own the land on the proposed project site. Gunaa Sicarú would have eaten up nearly 200 acres of Unión Hidalgo’s land — a devastating blow to this Indigenous, agricultural community. ProDESC, in partnership with the community, tirelessly petitioned the Mexican Energy Ministry to cancel…

Bogota, Colombia is a capital city filled with commerce and tourism. But, just outside the city center exists a noticeable contrast in housing and economic development where the poorest families reside. Many of the city’s poorest families live on the outskirts in the mountains, and they have very difficult commutes into the city center for work. Without daycare, many of the young parents would not be able to earn an income to support their families. Fe y Alegria, a Jesuit network of organizations helping the disadvantaged and poor since 1955, has preschools within this community offering free services to children up to 5 years of age. These services include: monitoring and evaluating the child’s development, nutritional supplementation and home interventions when needed. The administrator of the preschool feeds the children three nutritious meals per day. Although it doesn’t sound like a huge accomplishment, she does this on just $1 (one…

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…

*A happy girl at the playground of her school made out of recycled plastic bricks, in Toumodi-Sakassou, in the center of Côte d’Ivoire. Due to COVID-19, the schools were closed for several weeks. Classes started, and children are happy to see their friends…UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire has partnered with Columbian social business Conceptos Plasticos to turn plastic waste into construction materials for new schools. Research suggests that over the next 30 years, the world may produce four times more plastic than we ever have before. Finding innovative uses for plastic will become imperative to public health. Without plastic waste management, groundwater pollution may leave many communities without access to clean water. Plastic-clogged drains could continue to cause flooding and damage infrastructure. And air pollution from burning trash will pose major environmental and health risks. Because of their cost-effectiveness, durability, and ease-of-assembly, bricks made from 100% plastic waste have the potential to…