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International seminars UK

Watch the recordings, read about our guests and find out about future seminars.

Gender, care and livelihoods in times of crisis

Gender, care and livlihoods

Guests from women-led unions, grassroots organisations and NGOs defending the rights of women informal workers, care givers, and Afro-descendant communities provided insights into how they resist against everyday risks and disasters, and the strategies they have implemented to produce social change.

How do crises and disasters disrupt reproductive work? And how do communities organise and resist in the face of those extreme events to sustain their livelihoods? 

Six women sit up straight on a panel behind official plaquards with their names and organisations. Central behind them is a banner featuring the boldly-coloured GRRIPP logo. The women look both pensive and determined: some gaze outward in thought, another looks out at the audience behind the lens, some are taking notes.

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"Care is the first act of productivity in any society. We need to value this kind of work – not least because we will all be caregivers and we will all be looked after at some point in our lives."

This interactive panel brought together 6 of our GRRIPP commissioned projects from Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, India and Zimbabwe to discuss “Gender, care and livelihoods in times of crisis”, chaired by Dr Louisa Acciari.

 

The panellists

(Pictured above, left to right)

Credit: GRRIPP UK

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The image is taken from the audience of a seminar, showing six women sat on a panel behind official plaquards with their names and organisations. Central behind them is a banner featuring the boldly-coloured GRRIPP logo. Behind them to the left is a bright red poster which reads 'IRDR CENTRE FOR GENDER AND DISASTER' in white bold font. The women look both pensive and determined: the three leftmost women look out at the audience, the central of the right three figures gestures with passion as she makes a point and the remaining two look down in contemplation.

The panellists shared their perspectives on care and livelihoods, the work of their projects, and how their communities managed (or didn't) through Covid-19. Three key messages were shared collectively:

  1. Care is the first act of productivity in any society. We need to value this kind of work – not least because we will all be caregivers and we will all be looked after at some point in our lives.

  2. We must start from the principle that it is necessary to value indigenous knowledge and territorial practices around care.

  3. The ultimate challenge is in visibilising care work and understanding that it’s integral to how we as a society interact with each other.

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"it is necessary to value indigenous knowledge and territorial practices around care"

"The ultimate challenge is in visibilising care work and understanding that it is integral to how we as a society interact with each other."

Watch the seminar

The event was livestreamed, recorded and had simultaneous live translation in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Below you can watch the recording in English.

Five women stand around a banner smiling with their arms around one another. The banner features the logo of 'Cuidadanas Cuidando': a pink circle with green text and an icon amalgamating the symbol for disability with the female gender symbol. Below the image on the banner reads 'Impulsando ciudades y comunidades cuidadoras'

(From left to right):

GRRIPP global co-ordinator Dr Louisa Acciari, Gloria Sepúlveda of GRRIPP Project Ciudadanas Cuidando, Susana Herrera Quezada, Chilean Ambassador to the UK, Verónica Contreras of GRRIPP Project Ciudadanas Cuidando, Olga Segovia from GRRIPP Project SUR

Credit: GRRIPP UK

Credit: GRRIPP UK

Gender, care and livelihoods in times of crisis

Time stamps:

0:00 - Preliminary address by Dr Louisa Acciari

4:06 - Panellist introductions

10:30 - "How do you understand and define 'care' and what does it mean for you and the group you work with?'

27:46 - 'Explain the work your organisation has been doing during COVID-19 and your strategies of resisting and surviving'

1:12:06 - Questions

About our panellists:

Gloria Sepúlveda, Chile

A sociologist by trade and the project coordinator of the project "Plan to explore the infrastructure of neighbourhood care" in Chile.​ She is a caregiver, care activist of the Ciudadanas Cuidando Collective, and works for several urban and territorial development organisations.​ 

 

Maria Silvanete Benedito de Sousa Lermen, Brazil

A popular educator, advisor in community health, healer, advisor of ancestral portals, agroforest-maker, practitioner, and researcher of the experiences of peoples. She works to foster the revaluation and exchange of local knowledge produced by traditional communities. 

Charity Chenga, Zimbabwe

A founding member of Echoes of Humanity in the Machitenda village in Zimbabwe, she has worked to improve local transportation infrastructure to promote women's economic development without compromising their health.  Her work focuses on establishing community engagement and trust, with a background as both a practitioner and researcher in community development. 

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Olga Segovia, Chile

An architect, coordinator of the Women and Habitat Network of Latin America and the Caribbean (2013-2019); she is the author of several research and consulting projects on urban and local development, public spaces, care from a gender perspective. She has worked for multiple national Chilean organisations, as well as the European Union, and several UN organisations.

Ruth Diaz, Dominican Republic

 

President of FENAMUTRA (the National Federation of Working Women), she also founded unions for women in the healthcare and domestic sectors. Her work focuses on targeting gendered inequality, violations of working rights and injustice. With FENAMUTRA she runs seminars and courses providing training for home workers and has campaigned widely for worker's rights.  

Paromita Sen, India

 

Research manager at SEWA Bharat, she has spent the last decade conducting research on  gender and marginalisation across the Global South, with the goal of enabling access to voice and power for marginalised communities. She is currently working with informal women workers, and supporting their empowerment through evidence generation, collectivisim and upskilling, and advocating with them. 

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Bios
Video

Discussing Gender and Intersectional Approaches to Resilience

Save the date:                      Thurs 23rd March


Coinciding with the occasion of the UCL Centre for Gender and Disaster's 5th anniversary, we will bring to the spotlight international speakers from our GRRIPP commissioned projects in Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
 
Our guests will address the challenges of a gender and intersectional approach to disaster management, and offer ways forward to 'build back better' based on their knowledge and experience. We will engage in particular with issues around curriculum design, intersectional policies for women, LGBTQI+ communities and people with disabilities, as well as multiple forms of violence in disaster contexts.   
Seminar 2

Gender, Climate Change and Sustainable Development

Seminar 3
Save the date:                     Tues 2nd May


More info coming soon!
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