Women's experiences of leading emergency response at community level

Panel Chair: Elizabeth Riga Wahkilo, ActionAid

1. Investing in women’s leadership development: the role of Community Fellows in leading emergency response in Myanmar

   Presenter: Khin Zaw Win, Community Fellow of Kamna, Myanmar

   Khin Saw Win is a member of this Kamna programme, which was established to build capacity of youth leaders at local level to support development activities and emergency response in their communities.

   As a Fellow she participated in intensive training on development issues and community mobilisation. She has been working with her community to develop a village plan to address the water crisis and prolonged drought which affects the dry zone in Myanmar. She also engages local government authority to be accountable to the needs of the community 
   through developing a “village book” which presents to local authorities people’s demands and plans to address underlying causes of recurring disasters.
    

2. Women’s leadership in emergency policy work: women led campaigns for compensation in Pakistan Floods response

   Presenter: Sonia Ambreen, Community representative from Muzaffarh Garh District, Punjab Province, Pakistan

   Sonia Ambreen’s province has been badly affected by flooding. Following the disaster, many communities – in particular vulnerable women – were unable to access the government compensation packages they were entitled to for recovery and rehabilitation. Women’s groups mobilised as part of the emergency response programme initiated local level campaigns to demand their rights to compensation, which grew into national level advocacy.

   Sonia will be talking about how women can be supported to play a leadership role within their communities, and to go on to lead on policy work from local to district and national level.
    

3. Supporting women’s leadership through two-way communication in Kenya

   Presenter: Ann Mijioni, Relief Committee member, Isiolo, Kenya

   Ann Mijioni participated in a collaborative project between ActionAid and Infoasaid, which established an SMS communications system to support the drought resilience programme in 2010-2011. Relief committee members received mobile phones and solar chargers, enabling them to communicate with ActionAid and partners on details of the food distribution programmes. Through this, women in the community played a leading role in planning and organising food distributions in their villages, and played an important role in linking with the NGOs on security and logistics.

   Ann will talk about how this process has supported women to take leadership in their communities on project planning, beneficiary identification, and ensuring accountability in relief food distribution.
    

4. Q&A