The women's gathering was once again held by the YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) on 10-11 December 2024. After previously being held in 2023 at the UKDW auditorium, this event was held again with the theme of Women's Leadership in Building Community Resilience. Participants involved were members of grassroots women's groups partnered with YEU in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and Central Java, particularly in Magelang. The event aimed to provide a space for communication and dialogue among grassroots women's groups. Additionally, through the network that has been established, they can exchange ideas and work together to bring about change through discussions on strategic issues that they previously discussed at the 2023 Women's Meeting.
Women's Pre-Meeting: Working Together to Address Vulnerability Issues
Prior to the Women's Gathering, YEU also invited women's groups to participate in the Pre-Women's Gathering. This activity aimed to discuss in greater depth the five topics that were discussed at the 2023 Women's Gathering. This action was a form of women's groups' concern for these issues from their perspective.
The five issues include drought and crop failure; environmental and natural resource management based on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR); land and settlement constraints; floods and landslides; and waste emergencies. Discussions on these five topics were held online. The meeting was facilitated by the Women's Working Group for Resilience (POKJA).
The women's groups and the Working Group discussed the five issues in greater depth, particularly the solutions and good practices that had been implemented in each women's group. They also discussed the challenges and obstacles they faced in addressing their issues, so that by sharing their stories and experiences, they could gain an understanding of how these issues could be resolved and what support they needed from the government, thereby clarifying the direction of advocacy for each issue.
The session also discussed partnership guidelines that can be used to collaborate, both between women's groups and with the government and the business world.
Talkshow and Discussion on Women's Resilience in Facing Climate Change
The women's gathering on the first day began with an opening and welcome speech by Ms Debora Dian Utami, Director of YEU. In her speech, she mentioned that YEU has been working with women's groups since 2014. Since 2014, YEU and women's groups have also been actively involved with women's groups in 45 countries through the Huairou Commissions network. Our mission is to enhance women's leadership and agency as agents of change in their respective groups. The event was also attended by several speakers who are activists in the environmental conservation and disaster mitigation community, Prof. Dr. Suratman, M.Sc from the Faculty of Geography at Gadjah Mada University and founder of the Sungai Lestari Indonesia Foundation. Other speakers included Sri Hartanti, who is dedicated to protecting the Wonosadi Indigenous Forest; Suswaningsih, a field agricultural extension worker who cultivates barren land for agriculture; and Wiwid from the IKHLAS Group – a group that supports parents of children with disabilities.
The participants also engaged in discussions on strategic issues that they had previously discussed together during the online Pre-Meeting for Women 2024 session. During that session, they were divided into five groups based on the strategic issues they had chosen. At the end of the discussion, they also presented the results of their discussions, including changes in communication and advocacy strategies that needed to be conveyed to the government in order to bring about these changes.
Women's Leadership Class for Resilience Action
To empower women's resilience, a women's leadership class was held on the second day of the 2024 Women's Meeting. The women's leadership class aimed to increase the capacity of the women's meeting participants in dealing with the risks and threats around them, especially those resulting from climate change. By participating in these classes, they are expected to gain broader insights into climate change adaptation measures and mitigating the risks of disasters around them caused by climate change. Not only that, the Women's Leadership Class also offers training related to economic improvement, organisational management, and prevention of gender-based violence that can provide insights for women.
There are nine classes offered to participants, including Access to Funding for Groups and Communities, Basic Budgeting and Household Budgeting Workshops, Reproductive Health, Inclusive Preparedness and Mitigation, Anticipatory Action Through Food Barns, MSME Licensing for Local Product Development, Long-tailed Macaque Management, Handling Violence Against Women, and Climate Adaptive Agriculture with Fog Irrigation. The classes are divided into three sessions. Participants can choose three classes from the nine available, according to the information they need.
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Author: Devina Prima K. – Information and Communications Officer