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GEF Feminist Action for Climate Justice and Joanita Babirye

Note: Today’s newsletter is an excerpt from The InfluencHER Project’s newsletter. Click here to view their website. SUPPORTING AND AMPLIFYING FEMALE VOICES This week we continue to highlight the work of the Generation Equality Action Coalition Leaders in advance of next week’s Generation Equality Forum in Paris, June 30 – July 2. Your organization can join them … Continued
Pat Mitchell

Pat Mitchell

5 Min Read

Note: Today’s newsletter is an excerpt from The InfluencHER Project’s newsletter. Click here to view their website.

SUPPORTING AND AMPLIFYING FEMALE VOICES

This week we continue to highlight the work of the Generation Equality Action Coalition Leaders in advance of next week’s Generation Equality Forum in Paris, June 30 – July 2. Your organization can join them by making a commitment to advancing gender equality.

Our biggest motivation for becoming an Action Coalition Leader was to make our first-hand experiences of climate change in Uganda heard beyond borders and explore solutions on a global level. Becoming a Leader and sitting at the same table as government representatives, civil society leaders, and philanthropists means that we are visible, and that people recognize how essential youth voices are to achieving change. I hope a main outcome of the Forum is that the intergenerational gap is bridged. We need to work together to achieve a just world by tapping into the expertise of the older generation and applying new experiences and solutions from the young.

Empowering young women and girls to become climate leaders is an essential part of provoking action. Women and girls should be able to demand climate justice, but this is only possible when they are equipped with the tools and knowledge to hold everyone accountable and to break the barriers that are hindering their access to resources. Therefore, the action defined by our Coalition that speaks to me the most focuses on the development of climate leadership and knowledge hubs. This action drives transformation by making women and girls fully aware of the issues surrounding climate change and to be leaders in building the solutions.

Commitments that enhance learning and capacity building for women and girls are catalytic, as they increase the ability of different individuals to take climate action and advocate for justice. They are based on the recognition that taking action is key, even if that action is small. For example, if you decide you are going to start walking to work every day that is a good contribution and will have positive effects for marginalized or rural communities in the long run.

Being involved in the Action Coalitions has opened up a diverse space where everyone is pushing for the same goal. This gives me the feeling that we are in the fight together, that we stand for the same cause, and that we believe in creating something that represents the voices of the highly marginalised. Together we are creating goals, commitments and actions that will work for our communities and meet the ambitious vision for change that we all share.

Read more about the Action Coalitions.

Joanita Babirye 
Guest Editor

Joanita Babirye is the co-founder of the Girls for Climate Action, an organization that has stepped up as a Leader of the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice.

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Author(s)

  • Pat Mitchell

    Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor. In partnership with TED, Mitchell launched TEDWomen in 2010 and is its editorial director, curator and host. She is also a speaker and curator for the annual Women Working for the World forum in Bogota, Colombia, the Her Village conference in Beijing, and the Women of the World (WOW) festival in London. In 2017, she launched the Transformational Change Leadership Initiative with the Rockefeller Foundation focused on women leaders in government and civil society. In 2014, the Women’s Media Center honored Mitchell with its first-annual Lifetime Achievement Award, now named in her honor to commend other women whose media careers advance the representation of women. Recognized by Hollywood Reporter as one of the most powerful women in media, Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women” and Huffington Post’s list of “Powerful Women Over 50,” Mitchell also received the Sandra Day O'Connor Award for Leadership. She is a contributor to Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, and wrote the introduction to the recently published book and museum exhibition, 130 Women of Impact in 30 Countries. In 2016, she served as a congressional appointment to The American Museum of Women’s History Advisory Council. She is writing a memoir, Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing a Life of Power and Purpose, that will be published in 2019. Mitchell is active with many nonprofit organizations, serving as the chair of the boards of the Sundance Institute and the Women’s Media Center. She is a founding member of the VDAY movement and on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund. She is also an advisor to Participant Media and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mitchell is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds a master's degree in English literature and several honorary doctorate degrees. She and her husband, Scott Seydel, live in Atlanta and have six children and 13 grandchildren.