Gender Just Local Energy Solutions by Women: A Story of a Green and Circular Economy
Women's Livelihoods and Alternatives
Adivasi Women are blessed with diverse natural resources and evolved traditional knowledge of practising forest-based livelihoods. In some of our field areas, dispossession from lands and forests has reduced women's access to nutrition and incomes. Covid has worsened the situation with migration for labour becoming risky and unpredictable. To strengthen women's conservation practices and improve forest-based livelihoods, Dhaatri initiated support to women's enterprises and livelihood skills through the mahila samooh activities.
Mahua is a major source of income and nutrition. The quality and quantity of collecting the produce can be much enhanced with a few tools and value addition skills. We have extended our support through donations during this Covid period by providing collection nets, seeds, and kitchen garden support activities. However, we believe that these are supplementary support activities on livelihoods whose success cannot be realised without women's fundamental rights of entitlement to lands and forests. A case in example is a self-help group of widows who received training on various aspects of mushroom cultivation as an alternative avenue of income while they continue to fight for their right to forest lands.