Africa Mid-Year Updates
A warm thank you to Planet Women’s community of supporters and partners! Below are some highlights from our impact in Africa in the first half of 2023. Please see the full Mid-Year Report here!
Mountain gorilla in Bwindi Forest, Uganda. © Brenda Berry.
Planet Women’s work in Africa focuses on the Congo River Basin and the adjacent Albertine Rift. This region centers on the second largest rainforest in the world—the Congo Rainforest. Like the Amazon Rainforest, the Congo Rainforest is critical to mitigating climate change, as it regulates global carbon levels, temperatures and rainfall patterns. In fact, the rich peat soil of the Congo Rainforest stores 30 billion metric tons of carbon, about as much carbon as the entire world emits in three years.
The lush Congo Basin and the mountainous Albertine Rift, which lies to the east, are home to an immense wealth of biodiversity, including critically endangered African forest elephants, critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas and endangered mountain gorillas. The Congo also has a deep cultural history. Humans have lived in the Congo Basin for more than 50,000 years and the region supports more than 75 million people. Yet, this forest is at risk from oil and gas extraction, mining, logging and agricultural conversion.
In Africa this year, Planet Women has invested in forest restoration, business and leadership training for local women, faculty salaries and scholarships for local college students to study environmental science, and programming through our Center for Gender, Equity, and the Environment.
Uganda forest outside of Bwindi National Park.
African foresters are helping each other succeed through Planet Women’s Center for Gender, Equity and the Environment
With an exceptionally generous gift from an anonymous donor in July 2022, Planet Women launched the Center for Gender, Equity, and the Environment (CGEE) in Africa. The goal of the CGEE initiative is to provide grassroots environmental groups with resources and technical support to protect forest, water and biodiversity health, as well as increase gender equity and social justice in their workplaces and communities.
We are delighted to share that Planet Women hired an amazing new team member to help manage CGEE, Liliane Pari Umuhoza (read her bio here!). With her help, we launched the first offerings of CGEE this year. In March, we kicked off our Women’s Leadership Circle with 24 women who are at different stages of their career and leadership journey, but who all work in forest restoration. Each month, these women gather virtually for collective learning and peer support.
The gatherings are informed by what the participants identified as their highest priority needs, including helping women have their voices heard in decision making, challenges related to women’s access and control over resources and practical tools to engage men as allies. Since this group is spread across more than 12 African countries, Liliane provides French and English translation for the participants.
"Through this session, I learned that as women, we face similar challenges in our professional lives. We are constantly striving to prove our capabilities and leadership, which often gives us a burden of taking on everything. I am grateful to be part of this network and look forward to sharing our experiences." -SOMA/BADOLO Ivana Yipoa Ambroisine, Association de Gestion des Ressources Naturelles et de la Faune de la Comoé-Léraba (AGEREF/CL), Burkina FasoThe women said that they valued the discussion on the importance of prioritizing self-care, embracing the power of setting boundaries without guilt, and recognizing that they don't need to take on everything to prove their competence. Liliane reported that participants had such a strong interest in continuing to build relationships and share experiences that she set up a Whatsapp text group, so they can all stay in touch outside the meetings too!
Women’s Leadership Circle participants are also eligible to apply for a seed grants. Planet Women has distributed 10 seed grants this year—with another 12 grants being processed. Grants support the leaders’ personal or career growth and are funding things like book publication or fees for training and professional courses in climate change. Some of the women are traveling long distances to take courses on climate change and once they have completed their education, they plan to offer the training locally so they can share their learnings with their community.
Kula Fellows in Rwanda holding coffee plants. © Kula Project.
Rwandan women take the lead on ensuring their families & farms flourish
Planet Women’s community supported a second cohort of women to attend Kula Project’s leadership and business fellowship in Rwanda. The Kula Fellowship Program is a 15-month learning journey that provides coffee industry training, business investments, and life and leadership skills to empower women to build profitable businesses while stewarding the environment. We have loved watching the progress of the Kula graduates and the work that Kula has been doing to support local coffee farmers and their families to reach for their dreams.
Data that Kula collected from fellows who graduated in 2020 show exciting and affirming results. On average, graduates reported:
210% increase in income
364% increase in savings
92% increase in coffee harvest
93% of graduates have maintained profitable businesses
The success of this program is rooted in its strong focus on environmental education along with leadership-building and personal growth. Expert agronomists train fellows in tree canopy management, coffee tree and variety characteristics, soil productivity, harvesting, erosion control, weeding and waste management, composting and amendment, shade trees and more. Fellows also receive education about kitchen gardens, nutrition, health and well-being. And they are paired up with program mentors who help them along the way.
The current fellowship cohort began in August 2022, so fellows have passed the halfway mark of the program; and 315 aspiring entrepreneurs are on track to graduate in November 2023. Congratulations to the hardworking graduates and to the Kula Project team!