On 23-26 September 2025, YAKKUM Emergency Unit (YEU) and Huairou Commission held a virtual Action Research Workshop connecting women leaders from Indonesia, Nepal, and India. The workshop focused on empowering grassroots women to lead community-based climate adaptation strategies.
This workshop changed the paradigm, positioning women not as victims, but as researchers and innovators. Here are the main lessons learned:
- Mapping that Moves: Led by women, the vulnerability mapping process successfully identified the most vulnerable groups (the elderly, pregnant women, people with disabilities). This data was immediately translated into practical solutions such as collective farming, waste management, and crop processing.
- Becoming a Community Bridge: Findings from Indonesia and Nepal demonstrate the crucial role women play in connecting real needs on the ground with government support programmes, ensuring that no one is left behind.
- From the Kitchen to Village Meetings: This workshop has encouraged significant change. Women are now more confident in advocating for their findings in decision-making forums such as village meetings, monitoring the allocation of village funds, and managing the Community Resilience Fund.
- Re-evaluating Women's Contributions: An important discussion highlighted the need to recognise women's unpaid work (fetching water, storing seeds) as a vital economic contribution to climate adaptation efforts.
Overall, this activity proves that effective climate adaptation must be systematic, collective, and long-term. By empowering women as leaders of action research, we not only collect more accurate data, but also build a stronger and fairer foundation for community resilience in the face of the climate crisis.