I am really grateful for getting the opportunity to attend the CSW events and to hear from such wonderful and inspiring people from all over the world. These events not only enhanced my knowledge but will be immensely memorable for me.
CSW provided me with the opportunity to experience true sisterhood across borders and to converse with likeminded people from all over the world. It broaden my horizons by enriching my knowledge about different aspects of women empowerment.
The theme for this year was gender equality in the context of climate change. Climate change does not impact everyone equally but has more adverse impacts on women and girls. Women’s vulnerability to climate change stems from a number of factors which are social, economic and cultural. These were discussed at CSW66, some of them are :
- Climate change related economic insecurity forces girls into unpaid domestic labor, such as caregiving and fetching water. Due to which women are not left with enough time to access training and education.
- Situations become more difficult for women climate refugees due to sexual violence.
- Seventy per cent of the 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty are women. In urban areas, 40 percent of the poorest households are headed by women. Women predominate in the world’s food production (50-80 per cent), but they own less than 10
per cent of the land.
I attended the Working Group on Girls (WGG)’s statement writing conferences. We were divided into breakout rooms and were given the opportunity to give our recommendations in a statement for CSW Zero Draft (Agreed Conclusions) which was an extremely memorable experience for me.
In these two weeks of CSW, I also attended, as an IBVM delegate, several meetings including an Orientation Session and Advocacy Training; and webinars about various enriching topics, such as: Empowering Women At Grassroots Through Sustainable Agriculture; Indigenous Women; Institutional Racism and many more. In these events different issues faced by women and their solutions were discussed.
Some of these events were in the form of webinars while some were interactive sessions which made the experience even more valuable. I am really grateful for getting the opportunity to attend the CSW events and to hear from such wonderful and inspiring people from all over the world. These events not only enhanced my knowledge but will be immensely memorable for me.
Read a summary of the webinar “Empowering Women At Grassroots Through Sustainable Agriculture” HERE.
Author: Kshirija Sharma (St. Joseph’s Convent, Patna)
