The first-ever forum of indigenous women from local communities in Central Africa and the Congo Basin was held on Friday, May 12, in Brazzaville, Congo. These women found themselves around the preservation of the environment.
This meeting brought together, since Monday, May 8, some 150 women from a dozen African countries and other continents, as well as donors. This forum aimed to try to attract attention and promote the essential role played by these women in the preservation of their natural environments, whether they are Fulani, desert nomads or pygmy women from the equatorial forest.
The organizers of this forum started from an observation, namely that, regardless of the environment from which they come, these indigenous women play a key role in its protection.
“ Their life depends on the forest, the savannah, this bush in which they live. That’s why they have specific protection systems that are transferred from mother to daughter to adapt. Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of the planet “, underline Aïssatou Oumarou, vice-president of Répaleac, a network of indigenous peoples of Central Africa committed to the preservation of nature.
The problem is that these Aboriginal women, totally marginalized until now, went unnoticed. Repaleac therefore organised, with the help of the Congolese government and donors, this forum whose objective was to promote the work of these women.
These Aboriginal women also face another almost insurmountable problem, as the vice-president of Repaleac points out: “Women are 99% of people who have not been to school. The rare projects to which women manage to respond are projects with a whole series of intermediaries and therefore there is no direct access to funding. It really is a disaster. »
They have thus prepared a roadmap which aims to develop their environmental protection activities over three years, with promises of funding. However, ” until you see the money on the table, you can’t know “, concluded Aïssatou Oumarou.