"The Rural Women’s Movement Held a Feminist School, Mobilizes Collective Power to Demand Climate Justice"

The first ever feminist school in Uganda was held this year in Hoima. During the school, members of the Rural Women’s Movement underlined that land is central to people’s identity, livelihoods and food security. They emphasized that land is central to sustainability – be it cultural, economic or social because it forms the physical basis of sustainability. Therefore, there must be a democratic access to land and land-based resources to ensure sustainability.

The changing patterns of land-use is perhaps the major problem affecting grassroot women across the country. While land has for a long time been a source of conflict and disagreements between small-holder farmers, communities and clans, the recent wave of dispute is caused by land-rush: foreign investors purchasing or leasing land for mining or monoculture for profit. Communities have been disposed, families disconnected and local farming systems destroyed as government and investors prioritize profits over nature and people…

The women’s feminist school focused on women’s collective power to fight for food sovereignty, for peoples’ rights to sufficient healthy and appropriate food and sustainable food systems – eco-feminist development alternatives that ensures sustainability of natural resources; sustainable climate democratic access to land and land-based resources; the recognition of women’s role and rights in agriculture, fishing systems; farmers’ control of indigenous seed diversity. The feminist school also focused on collective fight to end policies, decisions and measures by governments, elites, institutions and corporations (domestic, regional and global) that increase the vulnerabilities of women and the planet.