Doosrachashma: a Travelling Film Festival Begins Its Journey

‘DoosraChashma: A travelling film festival’ begins its Journey

Population First works with a holistic approach to gender issues with a view to address the falling sex ratio. We involve media students and the youth to sensitize them to issues concerning gender.As part of our Laadli youth initiatives, we regularly screen short movies in colleges to start off discussions on the subject or encourage students to make one-minute movies on different gender issues. The next step was to involve more students and organize a campus film festival that will showcase films with a gender perspective, drawn from around the world.

The inaugural edition of ‘DoosraChasma – a Travelling Film Festival’ was organized byPopulation First on October 9 and 10 and was held at the film institute, Whistling Woods International (WWI) in Mumbai. The festival, a combination of non-fiction, short fiction, features and animations from 11 countries, including an acclaimed new documentary from Egypt, has been designed to spark off conversations on films and gender among students. Here are some excerpts from the coverage of our event in DNA Online by MunmunGhosh.

Population First plans to take this festival to campuses in Pune, Kolkata and Delhi and other places as well to continue to build conversation around gender among students.

Connecting Gender and Climate Change – Mainstreaming Gender

By LathaSankarnarayan, Eco-preneur& Founder,Developmatrix Consulting LLP

Gender and climate change, strange as they may seem are interconnected with almost all experts, economists, environmentalist, global leaders, parliamentarians and development agencies dealing with either or both the issues recognising the need to include a strategy of mainstreaming Gender in Climate Change adaptation programmes. Mainstreaming gender is not just about women or women empowerment. It is as much about gender equality as about the relationships between men and women.

United Nations (UN) and its different specialised agencies working under its umbrella are leading the concept of mainstreaming gender in tackling issues related to economic, social and environmental development. Its 193 member nations recently adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) proposed by UN, which have replaced the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). The SDGs comprise of 17 goals with each goalhaving specified targets totalling 169 targets that each nation has agreed to achieve by 2030. An intrinsic component of each of the 17 SDGs goals is gender.

Combating climate change consists of two key components – Mitigation (as in how to stop or reduce GHG emissions) and Adaptation (how to ‘adapt’ living in a climate changing world and protect and reduce vulnerability of communities from impact of climate change). Climate impacts women and men differently and each gender is distinct in its reaction to climate change, in each community. By understanding the different gender perspective and being gender sensitive to the needs of each gender in different communities, a more robust relief or mitigation strategy can be built.

India launched The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in 2008, which is implemented through eight National Missions, outlining priorities for mitigation and adaptation to combat climate change. However, it indicates no specific provisions for including specific gender-based strategies, although efforts are on to address the gap. Just a few weeks ago, India communicated its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) i.e. its Climate Action Plan ahead of the COP meet in Paris in December 2015. Part of the commitment is to reduce emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from 2005 level and to increase the renewable energy capacity to a whopping 175 GW by 2022. The adaptation and mitigation measures broadly look at addressing the impacts of climate change on agriculture, forest, vulnerable communities, addressing the rise in gender inequalities that may arise and as reducing energy utilization and clean energy as mitigation measures.

India is very vulnerable to climate change impacts, with the threat of frequent occurrence of disasters, change in monsoon patterns and melting of the Himalayan glaciers, coupled with socio-economic issues of population, poverty, and gender inequalities. In case of disasters too, women and men face different vulnerabilities which is due to conditioning of gender or societal traditions. Women and children are twice more vulnerable to disaster-related issues than men with unique health and hygiene problems ranging from lack of access to sanitation and sanitary pads, to reproductive health caused by pregnancy and childbirth. Safety of women and children too are of bigger concern post-disaster with women especially vulnerable to sexual violence and abuse.

During the recent massive earthquake in Nepal, there were reports the survivors facing threats of human trafficking for sex trade. Local health workers and the international disaster relief volunteers made efforts to create awareness on sexual harassment and warn the survivors about traffickers luring in the guise of relief workers. The Nepal police also imparted self-defense training to the women and girls in the relief camps to enable them to ward off sexual abusers and traffickers.

Gender differences are also to be noted in post-disaster relief aid and compensation like granting title deed, compensation packages, care and shelter for orphaned children, etc. As an example, post the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, in Tamil Nadu, an overwhelming majority of livelihood programs were implemented for men of the fishing community and just some meager earning ones for women. The fishing vessels offered was over-provided, and better than the ones the fishermen lost, with many not even knowing how to operate the new motorized ones. Traditional belief that women shouldn’t operate a boat in the fishing community stopped the authorities from compensating them with boats and instead the compensation offered was meagre.

Preparedness to disaster and planning is as important as post-disaster relief work. Maharashtra followed Odisha, to make its disaster management plan gender-sensitive with a separate strategy for the vulnerable women population. The plan gives guidance on dealing with the reproductive and sexual healthcare needs of girls and women when a disaster strikes as well as separate needs of the disabled population. It includes services for expectant mothers such as the provision of gynecologists and obstetricians, trained midwives and sterilized delivery kits under the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP).

Men and women contribute differently to the GHG emissions that cause global warning. In rural India, still about 67% of cooking is through non-conventional methods like firewood, cow dung and even coal in some coal-rich areas. Not only do these pollute the air through emissions, but also it affects the health of women and children. A key part of the clean energy policy of the Government of India is the ‘Give it-up LPG’ campaign; with an attempt to give more LPG based cooking stove access to needy households in rural areas. Promoting ‘smokeless’ but energy efficient cooking ecostoves is also part of the new climate action plan.

Agriculture and livestock contribute significantly to global GHG emissions and also climate change impacts agriculture in a big way. For India, one of the biggest threats of climate change is food security and agriculture.The varying weather patterns caused by global warming affect the monsoons heavily. India is already witnessing extremities of floods, droughts, and unseasonal rainfall, all of which impact the agriculture-based economy and the big farming community. On one hand droughts are causing fields to grow dry and on other hand, floods cause the fields to be washed away, creating ‘climate change’ refugees. Women traditionally are entrusted the role of feeding the family and threat to food security causes immense stress. Repercussions of over-reliance on pesticides and certain cash crops are aggravating the extreme climatic conditions. The advent of this green revolution emphasized on high-yield varieties of crops, whilst the traditional farming knowledge was based on adapting to weather, soil conditions and changing crop varieties. This knowledge existed in different communities with the older generation of men even being able to predict the weather conditions based on soil patterns. There are efforts by local organizations to tap into this immense traditional knowledge of local communities in identifying native seeds that are drought-resistant and water management processes through seed bank and watershed management projects.

Statistics based on the 2011 Census report show increase in women working as contract laborers in other farms, owing to loss of farm due to climate change impact. Despite, this when calamity like droughts or flood affects farmers and farmer suicides are reported, one hardly hears about the female laborer/cultivator nor are there any female representation on committees formed for benefits of farmers. With most government schemes meant aid farmers requiring proof of ‘owning’ land, the huge female laborer/cultivator community gets left out. A more gender-oriented National Climate Action Policy can help in addressing these inequalities that are acutely impacted by climate change. There are also conscious efforts by the Union Government to allocate resources and plan schemes for the growth of the agriculture sector through gender-budgeting.

Thus climate change is not just an environmental issue, it’s a social issue – it’s a gender issue. With use of gender perspective, we will have a better chance of combating climate change as well as adapting well to its impacts.

LathaSankarnarayan, is a sustainability and CSR consultant, an early entrepreneursin sustainability consulting and co-founder of Developmarix Consulting LLP, a woman-led social venture based in Mumbai, India. Developmatrix, follows a strategic approach to tackle sustainability and CSR issues, creating a sustainable value for both business and the community.Lathacan be connected at or through twitter @developmatrix

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