Uniting women as powerful stakeholders

San Francisco, CA, USA

The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is a climate justice-based 501(c)(3) organization established to unite women worldwide as powerful stakeholders through diverse programs, campaigns and projects including climate education trainings, reforestation projects, forest protection campaigns, media strategies, sustainability solutions, divestment delegations, policy advocacy, and worldwide movement building for social and ecological justice.

WECAN International centers a social and environmental justice analysis to highlight system change, both from the perspective of the systems that need transformation as well as imagining and implementing alternative solutions based on their four guiding principles: Rights of Women, Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Rights of Nature, Rights of Future Generations. WECAN International primarily focuses on work with women on the frontlines of climate change — in particular, Indigenous women, women of color, low-income women and underserved communities. They also believe it is essential to work with decision-makers, and thus their network engages with women at the highest levels of government and business.

WECAN International has collected considerable research to demonstrate the necessity of women’s leadership in solutions to environmental degradation and climate change through their website and online story-telling database “Women Speak: Stories, Case Studies, and Solutions From the Frontlines of Climate Change“. Women Speak provides interactive access to thousands of global stories by and about women leading struggles and solutions for climate justice under a variety of cross-sectional themes. These include: Biodiversity and Forest Protection; Freshwater and Ocean Protection; Farming, Food Justice and Land Rights; Indigenous Communities, Rights and Traditional Ecological Knowledge; and Social, Racial and Economic Equity.