GROOTS International

Our vision: To develop, over time, a movement giving voice and power to grassroots women's local visions and initiatives attracting long-term partners, and creating new policies, to expand and strengthen their leadership.

Driving the Demand for Good Governance: GROOTS International and the World Bank Social Development Unit Washington, DC
Building strong linkages with the World Bank has always been a priority for GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission. The Demand for Good Governance Learning Summit was an opportunity to re-establish our relationship with the Social Development Unit as well as build new linkages to other units and departments within the Bank. . In addition to presenting a discussion paper, “Beneficiaries to Stakeholders: Grassroots women’s groups drive the demand for good governance through pro-poor development,” GROOTS was invited to present innovative practices in driving the demand for good governance from the community perspective, along with the Social Development Department’s stocktaking of demand-driven good governance practices within the Bank itself.
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CENTER-STAGING WOMEN’S EFFORTS IN DISASTER RISK REDUCTION Groots International’s participation in ProVention Consortium’s Annual Forum Panama City
Amidst academics, researchers, donors and development banks and NGOs at ProVention Consortium’s Annual Forum ‘From Grassroots to Global: People Centered Disaster Risk Reduction in Panama City’, GROOTS International’s team led by Latin American women made a strong case for the need for grassroots women and their communities to drive resilience-building programs. Affirming his support for the global efforts of the GROOTS’ network to empower women to shape DRR programs, Vinod Menon, member of the National Disaster Management Authority of the Government of India, publicly congratulated Groots and presented a plaque from the Government of India to the GROOTS network.
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LATIN AMERICAN WOMEN PROMOTE RESILIENCE THROUGH GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING & DEVELOPMENT | El Rol y Poder de los Grupos de Mujeres de Base e Indígenas en el Manejo de Riego de Desastre Guatemala City, Guatemala
More than 50 leaders representing 25 grassroots and indigenous organizations concluded a three day experience sharing workshop entitled “The Role and Power of Grassroots and Indigenous Women’s Groups in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)” today by launching a regional networking platform to publicize women’s good practices and ensure public representation in disaster related policy and local decision making. Collectively representing more than 30,000 citizens living in disaster prone communities, the women’s groups from 10 Latin American and Caribbean countries1 issued recommendations after harvesting their five to twenty-five years of experience working in disaster-prone communities in the workshop. GROOTS International, supported by the Pro-Vention Consortium, convened and facilitated these local experts in a ‘pre forum’ workshop to draw upon and amplify the knowledge and skills they have gained from coping with the short and long-term impacts of floods, droughts, hurricanes, tropical storms, frosts, earthquakes, and erosion of natural resources as the result of climate change.

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One hundred and seventy people celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Czech Mother Centers Network With Special Congratulations from President Vaclav Havel Prague, Czech Republic

The 15th anniversary of the Czech Mother Centers Network opened with more than 170 mother center leaders, distinguished scholars and national and local government officials listening to a congratulatory letter from former Czech President Vaclav Havel. Urging members of the Mother Centers Network to use this occasion to benchmark and celebrate their success, President Havel praised the network’s contribution to improving the quality of family life and promoting a democratic civil society in the Czech Republic in a key transitional period.

Throughout the opening day, a variety of scholars, grassroots activists and government ministers in the national Social Affairs and Family Policy Department praised the Network of 250 Czech Mother Centers for helping the Czech Republic : see society through the “eyes of our children”, valuing solidarity and equality of chance as much as personal freedom, and for modeling by example and tirelessly advancing the political, social and economic supports needed to create a 'family friendly' society in the 21st century. Leaders of the Mother Center networks, a number with young children at their side, took time to own and celebrate how, in 15 short years the Czech Mother Centers had evolved from a handful of mothers trying to figure out how to cooperatively care for their young children outside their own homes to a creative and sophisticated civil society movement of women who had reshaped, through their own experience, how ‘the personal is political'...Click here to Read On!

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Kampala, Uganda
From November 19-20, 10 grassroots women from the network of GROOTS International in East Africa participated in the Health Workshop at the Commonwealth Heads of Government People’s Forum.

The Health Workshop was organized and dominated by medical and nursing professional associations and the overall dialogue focused on two themes: greater access to treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS, and increasing government investment in health systems. The GROOTS delegation, composed of grassroots community leaders and home-based caregivers, ensured that the realities facing people in communities were addressed by workshop participants as they prepared to present major issues in health to the meeting of Commonwealth leaders that will meet in Kampala from November 21-24.

Grassroots Women's International Academy in Latin America and the Caribbean Lima, Peru
La Primera Academia de mujeres de base en América Latina y el Caribe fue un gran éxito! Liderezas de base planificaron y dirigieron un evento en que 90 mujeres de 15 países en la región compartieron prácticas exitosas de sus comunidades y desarrollaron ideas de cómo podrían aprender la una de la otra y transferir su conocimiento. De click aqui para el informe de la Academia! (Spanish and English)

Grassroots Women's International Academy: Uniting Communities Around Caregiving Nairobi, Kenya
GROOTS International, hosted by GROOTS Kenya, organized 90 women leading innovative community-based AIDS responses from across Africa, plus representatives from India and Guatemala, for a 4-day peer learning event prior to the YWCA International Women's Summit. Read our full reports here

Report from the UNISDR Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction Geneva, Switzerland
Grassroots innovators urge policy makers at UNISDR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to scale up community led risk reduction strategies. Read our full reports here

Prema Gopalan, director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog, wins Mary Fran Myers Award for her work supporting women to organize their communities to restore housing, livelihoods, community infrastructure and basic services, participate in reconstruction and create new, empowered spaces for women to continue their development activities after post-disaster reconstruction was completed. Read more here!

UCOBAC and Rwanda Women's Network engage in an exchange on Home-Based Care

Esther Mwaura-Muiru, national coordinator of GROOTS Kenya was interviewed on KPFA's Morning Show (San Francisco, USA) on March 12th. She spoke eloquently about GROOTS International and GROOTS Kenya, as well as about her personal story and how it led her to become a grassroots activist and leader.

GROOTS International brought 45 women to the World Social Forum this month. In activities organized and anchored by GROOTS Kenya, the women, majority Home-Based Caregivers, led a program around the theme: "Turning the HIV/AIDS Pandemic into a Development Opportunity." Participants came from UCOBAC, Kamokya Christian Caring Community (Uganda), International Women's Communication Center (Nigeria) and Ntankah Village Women Common Initiative Group (Cameroon). Download the full report here

Two members of GROOTS International this week were announced as winners of the Dubai Best Practices Award. Rwanda Women's Network was recognized for it's innovative Village of Hope, empowering women survivors of genocide and sexual violence to re-create their communities. The Grassroots Women's International Academy, innovated by GROOTS and submitted as a best practice by GROOTS' member the Mother Center International Network for Empowerment (MINE) was recognized as a best practice transfer.

GROOTS International and American Jewish World Service this week launched Community Learning for Resilience Building in Emergencies, an initiative to build community leadership in disaster-prone areas. The initiative seeks to build on the capacity of grassroots women who have responded to local disasters with creativity, resourcefulness and strength. By bringing together women who established leadership in their communities in the wake of disaster, the project aims to create a global community of grassroots resources that can be mobilized in the event of a new disaster. The project was launched this week in India, Indonesia and Latin America and the Caribbean with a series of workshops.

Six women from the Garifuna Emergency Committee of Honduras joined the Union of Cooperativas, “Las Brumas” of Nicaragua in a Peer Exchange to compare and transfer their organizing practices, sustainable agriculture methods and their strategies for negotiating with local authorities.

Bratislava, Slovak Republic
MINE Conference: "How do we want to raise our children?"
120 Members of the Mother Center International Network and GROOTS International (Bosnia, Czech Republic, Kenya, Germany, Netherlands, Slovak Republic, Turkey) plus policymakers, media, foundations and other partners come together for 3 days to discuss the concerns of parents and successes, challenges and contributions of Mother Centers.
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Donors and Grassroots Women Propose Changes to Funding Norms: Donor Dialogue at the International AIDS Conference, Toronto. Read more here!

GROOTS Kenya's Mathare Mother's Development Center and Rwanda Women's Network Village of Hope are recognized as finalists in the Red Ribbon Award: Community Leadership and Action on AIDS. Read more here!

GROOTS leads 150 women in a Grassroots Women's International Academy: Building Sustainable Communities at the World Urban Forum III
Read our full report here!