BREAKING THE WALL OF LIMITATIONS ON INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S CLIMATE ACTION AND VOICE
It has not been an easy struggle for the Inger Wewal Indigenous Women's Group to run the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) Program. The climate action program, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and driven by WWF-Indonesia for the Land of Papua, started in early 2021 and will end in 2025.
The program, which is conducted under a partnership cooperation scheme, aims to realize local climate solutions in an inclusive, effective, and sustainable manner through the support of climate actors, including indigenous women's groups.
One of the VCA partners is the Inger Wewal women's group from Sawe Suma Village, Unurum Guay District, Jayapura Regency, Papua Province. This group of 60 indigenous women is faced with several limitations in addressing the objectives of the VCA program. Their limitations are closely related to the capacity requirements of supporting organizational work in the era of global technology.
Human resource limitations refer to the low educational background of each group member, which makes it difficult for the group to package their local climate action narratives and schemes so that they can be documented, recognized, and adopted in policy.
Most members of these indigenous women's groups did not complete primary education. Some never had the opportunity to receive formal education at all. However, these limitations have not dampened their enthusiasm for voicing their local climate actions and solutions.
"Tong trada who went to high school and many of us tra never go to school, but tong have this brain, God gave us to think," said Amo, leader of the Inger Wewal Indigenous Women's Group.
One of the steps taken by these women to answer the challenges they face is to involve and empower the younger generation of Sawe Suma Village. The young generation of Sawe Suma Village can now get the opportunity to get an education, starting from elementary education to college.
Through WWF-ID's VCA program, this indigenous women's group held an information and technology mastery capacity-building activity (computer and internet operation) directly supported by WWF-Indonesia Papua Program in July and August 2023. The training involved the administrators of the Inger Wewal Indigenous Women's Group and 11 youths of Sawe Suma Village whom young women dominated.
But the most important thing is that young people can continue what mothers in the village are doing to save the environment," said Amo.
Amo's prioritization is not without reason. "Because the ones who will be the victims of the impacts of climate change are the younger generation," he said.
Those steps and hopes have borne fruit and had a good impact on the development of the Inger Wewal group organization in Sawe Suma indigenous women's climate change action. Two young men have committed to supporting Inger Wewal's activities by helping to write reports.
The ideas and steps taken by Sawe Suma indigenous women to involve the younger generation in voicing climate action have provided a good lesson that the limitations of indigenous women can be broken through collective action involving many parties, especially the younger generation.
"I'm proud to be able to operate a computer, I'm happy to be part of the movement, I have mothers who have climate action in Sawe Suma," said Lince. (*)