All over the world, hardworking families are suffering because of environmental effects due to climate change.
In Bangladesh, family farms on the coast are struggling to protect crops. Sea level rises are creating excessive salt in the soil. With damaged crops, farmers find it difficult to produce enough food, sparking a series of events that leave vulnerable families open to further calamities. Husbands are forced to abandon their farms in search of other work. Women are left at home with limited resources to tend to the farm and protect their children.
The Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) was created to help families like those in Bangladesh. CRJF is formed by women, youth, and indigenous peoples to create, share, and scale local solutions for resilience in the face of climate change. They work together with frontline communities to build a dynamic movement of people demonstrating and advocating for smart solutions to climate change.
At the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit, several of the most prominent environmental female speakers were there because of CJRF. These women demanded to be heard, and rightfully so.
They represented some of the places most threatened by the climate crisis, and they advocated that those who have the most responsibility for the emissions causing climate change shoulder the greatest responsibility for the costs of emissions reduction. Their presence at the summit was a strong signal of CJRF’s growing stature on the global stage.
With support from the New Venture Fund, CJRF has moved funds quickly to distant countries requiring help without forcing communities to jump through complicated bureaucratic hoops.
CJRF recently granted $1 million to HELVETAS, an independent Swiss development organization that is building capacity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe for its “Water is Life” project.
Grants like these help CJRF pursue its goal of ensuring that women, youth, and indigenous peoples have the resources they need to determine and build the solutions that will work best for them and their families.
