Webinar for Earth Day - We are Nature: Mountain Women Collectively Defending the Earth

As part of the Mountain Women of the World project, we are hosting a Webinar on Earth Day, 22nd April, 13:00 to 15:00 UTC, led from a transnational network of mountain women*. It will be a space for groups of mountain women from around the world to share experiences and knowledge. The attendance to the Webinar is open to all upon registration. 

The Webinar is organised by the project partners of Mountain Women of the World: Empowering Women of Nepal, Feminist Hiking Collective, Kilimanjaro Women, Mujeres a la Cumbre, Cholitas Escaladoras de Bolivia, 3 Sisters Adventure Trekking and Women Who Hike Africa. With the participation of: Mountain Partnership Secretariat, the UIAA - International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, Travolution, Club Alpino Italiano, South South Women, Alessandra Segantin, Ana Agustina Barros, Bangladesh Mountaineering Federation and Gender Responsible Tourism.

The Webinar will cover the following themes:

• Sharing skills and practices for sustainable mountain development and community-led tourism (Patricia Breuer Moreno from Mujeres a la Cumbre; 3 Sisters Adventure Trekking; Lorella Franceschini from Italian Alpine Club; Stephanie Carmody from Travolution and Iaia Pedemonte from Gender Responsible Tourism)
• Sharing advice and ideas to strengthen economic justice for mountain women, and sharing skills and practices on how mountaineering builds collective power and collective feminist leadership (Lucky Chhetri from Empowering Women of Nepal; Feminist Hiking Collective; RosaLaura Romeo from the Mountain Partnership Secretariat)
• Building collective mindfulness and holistic wellness (Alia Datoo from Women Who Hike Africa; Mujeres a la Cumbre and Zaynah Khanbhai from South South Women)
• Sharing practices and knowledge for protecting the mountains’ environment, and sharing experiences on how mountain women are impacted by climate change and how we can strategize to create change together for climate justice (Lorella Franceschini from Italian Alpine Club; Harswanti Bisht and Carolina Adler from the UIAA Mountain Protection Commission; RosaLaura Romeo from the Mountain Partnership Secretariat; Aupar Ahmed from the Bangladesh Mountaineering Federation; Ana Agustina Barros and Alessandra Segantin)
• Create a safer space and a space where we can learn from our collective experiencesand mountain cultures, and share a call to action to organise together for International Mountain Day, with a focus on sustainable mountain tourism.
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*with the term "women" we always mean people self-identifying with this gender.

The project aims to build a transnational network of mountain women*, and to organize its first expedition to the Aconcagua mountain - 6962m, via the normal route (Horcones Valley) from December 2021 to January 2022. We aim to build mountain women's collective feminist leadership and narrate a collective mountaineering story, strengthening economic justice for mountain women, and foregrounding the collective knowledge and experience of mountain women in protecting mountains and all nature.

It is a collective collaborative project by enterprise Mujeres a la Cumbre from Argentina and Chile, non-profit organization Feminist Hiking Collective from Europe, non-profit organization Empowering Women of Nepal, and with groups Women Who Hike Africa from Kenya, Kilimanjaro Women from Tanzania, and Cholitas Escaladoras from Bolivia.

United, equal, supporting and caring for each other to tell a collective feminist hiking story. 

We are seeking funds to allow the participation of two women from each of the participating groups to the expedition: by making a donation (no matter how small) you can contribute to sponsoring the expedition cost (which includes airport transfers, mountain guides, porters, all food and drinks, internal travelling, all expedition accommodation and park  entrance fees). Each woman's expedition cost amounts to approx. 3,000  Euros - for a total of 36,000 Euros.

*When we use the word “women” we always mean people self-identifying as women.

We aim to gather in the Aconcagua mountain women, such as women guides, porters, mountain workers, hikers and women living in mountainous areas, from different countries and backgrounds, including women who are working in heavily patriarchal environments where men generally carry out these activities. They defend and live in reciprocity with the mountains, and protect our connection and belonging to Mother Earth. Some of women participating are indigenous women living and working in the Andes. Others are local women working as guides and porters from the Himalayas to Mount Kilimajaro, from the Dolomites to Mount Kenya. Some of the women who are part of the project's organizations and groups are women from disadvantaged backgrounds, and many of them are also mothers and have families in charge.

The project seeks to build women’s collective feminist leadership and to sustain a transnational network of mountain women before and following the first expedition. This support network is a tool to support and connect mountain women and facilitate cultural exchange, sharing skills, knowledge and learning, strengthening resilience, creating new collaborative work opportunities and shared projects, building economic justice. The partner organizations and groups will prepare in their respective countries their participating women, which upon their return they will seek to share this experience in their communities with wider groups of mountain women.

We aim to foreground the fundamental importance of collectively protecting and respecting mountains, to promote multiculturalism and diversity as elements of deep richness and shared learning; to create and sustain a narrative of mountaineering as a collective experience that builds women's collective power, thus encouraging more women to get involved with mountaineering, and as a tool for collective care, sharing and solidarity, to build humility, resilience, and our reciprocity with and belonging to nature.  

Most importantly, it is about doing this as a team, collectively. The mountain unites us. Together we transform!