Women farmers from Itapetim take part in gender and climate workshop

By Rosa Sampaio
Journalist at the Sabiá Center

On May 16 and 17, the Sabiá Center held the Gender and Climate Workshop in the community of Gameleira, in Itapetim, in the Sertão do Pajeú. 15 women farmers from the region took part in the workshop, highlighting the connections that women farmers make in their daily lives with climate change, with the experiences they identify as potential adaptation actions, to cosmic readings of the signs of these changes.

For Rivaneide Almeida, Sabiá’s territorial coordinator, it was a very rich activity and a lot of learning for these peasant women, as we know how much the climate crisis impacts on the lives of women, especially rural women. “And these workshops will continue throughout the project, the next one will be with the women of the municipality of Flores, also here in Pajeú,” says Riva.

During the workshop, family farmer Evanice Pereira Soares (Nice) explained how the routines of women who use social technologies can contribute to mitigating climate change in the area. “The cisterns help because with little rain we can fill a cistern, even if it’s during a difficult period of the year, the cisterns are easier to get water from, since in the tanks the water evaporates. And those who have a second water cistern can use it for their animals and plants.

And when we asked her about the Reuse of Greywater in the Agroforestry System (RAC/SA), Nice was emphatic: “The reuse (RAC), as well as being water that already comes with some protein, already helps (sic) the agroforestry, which is a mixture of plants and one protects the others, both from pests and also improves the soil. And we have (agroecological) stoves, which emit less smoke, use less wood and cook more,” Nica recalls.

Still according to Nice, these technologies have improved the quality of life of women farmers in the semi-arid region, “because there are many people who, through cisterns, stoves and reuse in agroforestry, produce more and earn a good income as well”.

The workshop is an activity of the “Gender and Climate Change” training course, focusing on the women taking part in the RAC and SAF project: adaptation to climate change and sustainable livelihoods for women in the Brazilian semi-arid region, with support from the United Nations Development Program/UNDP. The training course is one of the main points of the project, covering the technical and socio-environmental axes, connecting gender justice with climate adaptation, seeking to support women farmers to better understand how climate change has affected their lives and how to respond and adapt to it.