How to improve the capabilities of deprived women
so as to give the future generation a more equal start in life?

 

This initiative seeks to empower women from disadvantaged groups to speak out in their indigenous language and give voice to their constraints and maternal anxieties during the pre-natal phase of the future generation.

This initiative began when HHESS (Himalayan Health and Environmental Services Solukhumbu) participated in a South-South civil society group from risk-prone areas of Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Mali, Cameroon, and Bolivia. The South-South civil society group sought to improve pregnancy outcomes for the health and well being of the future generation as a key measure, if not the key measure, of sustainable development.

The HHESS model of improving the pregnancy outcomes of disadvantaged Dalit women in remote climate risk prone agro-ecosystems of Solukhumbu was acknowledged in the Strategic Evaluation ‘UN World Food Programme’s role in ending long-term hunger’ using the HHESS multi-year database on birth-weights.

Dr Lhamo Sherpa and Dhana Singh were invited from HHESS by the University of Geneva to a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)-sponsored Workshop (IZ32Z0_145128) to share with South-South colleagues the challenges that they experienced in giving the future generation a more equal start in life.

We have now put Ms Deukali Kami, as an exemplar, in communication with our University of Geneva and the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) partners seeking to empower her and hundreds, if not thousands, of disadvantaged women like her living in agro-ecosystems of climatic risk. We propose to empower them to speak out with authority in the highest United Nations Forums. We wish to provide them with a platform not only to highlight the constraints, but also to demand change at all levels to give future generations dwelling in climate risk prone agroecosystems a resilient springboard for a more equal start in life.