Organization: Global Women's Water Initiative

The Women and Water Conference is a 5-day gathering that empowers women with the tools to carry out an income-generating water service project from start to finish. This conference is holistic, in that it will not only share effective and proven technologies, but valuable organizational skills to help women build business plans, develop programs, perform needs assessments, implement projects, and create strategic partnerships to ensure environmental, financial and social sustainability. Each woman will leave the conference with the skills and support to successfully launch her own water service project from start to finish.

The 2008 African Women and Water Conference was a great success! Held in Nairobi, Kenya, this incubator for micro-enterprise development and water technology training marked Phase I of our Women and Water Program. We were able to convene women leaders from eight African nations to learn low-cost, sustainable water technologies, develop business plans, and receive Seed Grants to launch their own clean water microenterprises.
Since the conference, not a moment has been wasted. Our women participants have returned to their communities invigorated. Each team has begun to implement their water project; they are building solar cookers, erecting water storage tanks, constructing water filters, and training others to do the same. A Single Drop and GROOTS Kenya are making site visits to each of the program participants over the next several months, and we are confident that the knowledge gained at this conference will ripple out across the continent for years to come.

The African Women and Water Conference was organized in partnership by A Single Drop, Crabgrass, GROOTS Kenya, and Women’s Earth Alliance. A global search was launched in 2007, seeking African women community leaders who were working on the frontlines of environmental, social and economic sustainability in their communities. Our selection committee received dozens of applications and carefully selected a group of thirty-two women to join our program. We designed the conference curriculum and selected the water technologies based on the specific water challenges present in these selected communities. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Wangari Maathai also joined our effort with her endorsement, and her organization the Green Belt Movement agreed to host the first conference at their training center.
Women's Earth Alliance empowers and unites grassroots women advocates, entrepreneurs and community leaders around the world who are working in the areas of environmental, economic and social justice. By providing access to communication tools, support services and networking capabilities, WEA helps women strengthen their alliances and leadership abilities in order to impact change at the local, regional and global level to collaborate across borders and define a collective agenda. Women's Earth Alliance grew out of a global strategy session when thirty grassroots women environmental leaders worked to identify the key resources, networking opportunities, and communication tools they needed to enhance the local and global impact of their efforts.
GROOTS Kenya (Grassroots Organizations Operating Together in Sisterhood) is a network of women self-help groups and community organizations formed as a response to inadequate visibility of grassroots women in development and decision-making forums that directly impact them and their communities. The network's objective is to "ensure that grassroots women are masters of their own destiny through their direct participation in decision making processes." GROOTS Kenya's goal is to strengthen the role of grassroots women in community development by serving as a platform for grassroots women's groups and individuals to: come together, to share their ideas/experiences, to network and to find avenues to directly participate in decision making, planning and implementation of issues that affect them.
Crabgrass is San Francisco based organization working globally and locally on environmental, social change, and human rights issues. For many years our activities and writing have brought together scientific, strategic, spiritual, educational and artistic efforts to improve the quality of water. Since 1982 we have worked in partnership with India-based Sankat Mochan Foundation to clean the Ganges River. Crabgrass has organized three international conferences on Women and Water in South Asia.
A Single Drop's Program "Bringing People H2ope" promotes water as a source of peace and equality by improving community health through providing safe water for all people. Merging action and advocacy, ASD creates and/or transforms community-based organizations (CBOs) into independent and self-reliant local water service organizations. This award-winning model support CBOs to become hubs of expertise in water supply and water resource management. ASD's Women WaterKeepers Program launched in the Philippines and expands to Africa with the AWWC.