Brazil Land and Housing Exchange: Learning Strategies from the Union of Housing Movements of São Paulo
December 7 , 2007
On December 6th and 7th women representing community-based organizations in seven countries in Central and South America visited a number of projects that members of the Union of Housing Movements of São Paulo (UMMSP) are currently developing to redress social exclusion, stimulate in urban reform, and ensure all residents have permanent and dignified housing. Read more here...

Huairou Commmission organizes 90 grassroots women for Grassroots Academy and YWCA International Women's Summit!
July 27, 2007
From July 4-8, 2007, the YWCA convened the first conference focusing specifically on women and AIDS. The Huairou Commission organized for a year to ensure that grassroots women, particularly home-based caregivers, were a major delegation within the conference. Thanks to the leadership and dedication from our member organizations and logistical support staff, our entire program at the YWCA Summit, including a preceding 4-day Grassroots Women’s International Academy, was a success. Read more and download documents and reports here...

Grassroots Call to Action at the YWCA International Women's Summit
July 7, 2007
Shorai Chitongo, of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, made a pledge to the YWCA Call to Action on behalf of the Huairou Commission and GROOTS International. Her speech is a commitment to grassroots, horizontal organizing, partnership cultivation and the creation of a fund for grassroots women's leadership and initiatives. Read her speech and find out how to sign on here...

Grassroots Leaders recognized by the World YWCA with Women Leading Change Award!
June 14, 2007
Veronica Kini, of the Ntankah Village Women Common Initiative Group, Cameroon, and Rose Auma, of the Mathere Mother's Development Center, a part of GROOTS Kenya, are being recognized by the World YWCA with the Women Leading Change Award at the upcoming YWCA International Women's Summit: Women's Leadership Making a Difference on HIV and AIDS! Both women are members of the GROOTS International network.Read more here...

Grassroots Innovators Urge Policy Makers at UNISDR Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction to scale up community led risk reduction strategies.
June 7, 2007
Groots International and the Huairou Commission, strongly supported by Provention, with a delegation of grassroots women of unprecedented size and range for a UN disaster conference, continue to have a tremendous impact at the UN ISDR conference in Geneva. Read more here...

Land and Housing Campaign sponsors a five-day Peer Exchange between grassroots women from Peru and Nepal
May 15, 2007
As a part of the Huairou Commission's Land and Housing Campaign, two women from Mujeres Unidas por un Pueblo Mejor and Estrategia, Inc in Lima, Peru traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal for a five-day Peer Exchange with Lumanti and the Federation of Squatter Women. Learning and exchange focused on savings and credit groups, housing development and construction, and negotiations with local authorities.Read more here...

The Huairou Commission's participation in UN-Habitat's 21st Governing Council: Promoting good governance from local action through global advocacy
May 1, 2007
At this week-long meeting the Huairou Commission delegation, comprised of the Huairou Coordinating Council (with representatives of each Huairou Commission Network) and grassroots African women-participants of the GROOTS Kenya Local to Local Dialogue Training, participated in the deliberation of governments, civil society and bi-lateral agencies to discuss the policies, programs and initiatives of the UN-Habitat for the next five years. Read more here...

Women's Land Link Africa Leadership meeting focuses on peer learning, exchange of tools and practices
April 2, 2007
Participants in the Women Land Link Africa (WLLA) initiative from 10 countries came together last week to exchange experiences and practices in enhancing the capacity of grassroots women as they work to secure women’s land, housing and inheritance rights. Through this meeting, grassroots women took one more step in forming an innovative, on the ground, pan-African, peer learning community. Twenty-four grassroots women and leaders representing fourteen organizations in Southern, Eastern and Western Africa met in Nairobi from March 19th to March 22nd to engage in peer learning and plan for the third year of WLLA related activities and the future direction of phase two (years four through seven) of the WLLA partnership project. Read more here...

The Huairou Commission brings concrete grassroots practices to the Global Land Tools Network Grassroots Mechanism
March 20, 2007
Members of the Huairou Commission's network of grassroots women from five countries presented the land practices that they have developed, and identified the concerns that many grassroots women have with regard to the ways in which land is administered, allocated, used and transferred. The meeting was organized by COHRE on behalf of UN Habitat. Read more here...

"We Know We Can Fly!" Grassroots Women and Girls at the Commission on the Status of Women
March 12, 2007
On the occasion of the United Nation’s 51st Commission on the Status of Women, the Huairou Commission organized a workshop, “Grassroots Girls Respond to Violence and HIV/AIDS”. The well-attended and participatory event featured Betty Makoni from the Girl Child Network (Zimbabwe), Ottilie Abraham and Sarah Andreki from the Namibia Girl Child Organization, Sommell Richards from Lawyers without Borders, Karen Austrian, founder of Binti Pamoja (Kenya) and Luna Avila, Beatrice Oshodi and Olivia Katz from the Lower East Side Girls’ Club (New York). Dahlia Goldenberg from the global offices of GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission moderated the panel. Besides organizing this highly successful workshop on the empowerment of adolescent girls, the Huairou Commission was active in the Linkage Caucus, and signed on to the open letter on the UN's gender architecture. Read more here...

Disaster Campaign Launches "Community Learning for Resilience Building in Emergencies"
November 27, 2006
GROOTS International and American Jewish World Service (AJWS) launched this week a joint initiative, "Community Learning for Resilience Building in Emergencies," in Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia, with workshops in Jamaica, India and Indonesia. The initiative seeks to build on the capacity of grassroots women who have responded to local disasters with creativity, resourcefulness and strength. By bringing together women who established leadership in their communities in the wake of disaster, the project aims to create a global community of grassroots resources that can be mobilized in the event of a new disaster. Read more here...

The Huairou Commission at the Global Land Tools Network
November 7, 2006
The strength of grassroots practices around securing tenure was acknowledged this year when the Huairou Commission was invited to represent the grassroots voice in the newly launched Global Land Tools Network. The Huairou Commission’s role as a GLTN partner is to ensure that there is genuine grassroots participation in land tool development initiatives and that pro-poor, affordable land tools support community involvement. Read more here...

Prema Gopalan and Lily Hutjes Appointed to Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor Working Groups!
October 5, 2006
Prema Gopalan, director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog and GROOTS International, and Lily Hutjes of the Women's Advisory Committee and the International Council of Women were appointed to the Legal Empowerment Working Groups on Entrepreneurship and Property Rights, respectively. Read more here...

Jan Peterson appointed to Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor Advisory Board!
August 31, 2006
Jan Peterson, the Chair of the Secretariat of the Huairou Commission, has been selected to serve on the Board of Advisors to the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor. Legal Empowerment aims to make the link between poverty and the inability of the poor to access acceptable, legal structures to protect economic assets and support economic activity...read more

Huairou Commission Members Honored as Finalists in Red Ribbon Award Contest at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto!
August 16, 2006
The Huairou Commission and GROOTS International are proud to announce that the Mathare Mother’s Development Center (part of GROOTS Kenya) and the Rwanda Women’s Network Village of Hope were honored at last week’s International AIDS Conference in Toronto as finalists in the Red Ribbon Awards Contest: Celebrating Community Leadership and Action on AIDS...read more

Grassroots Women Bring Breath of Fresh Air to World Urban Forum 3
Press Release
July 6, 2006
From June 19-23, 2006, grassroots women from over 30 countries joined NGO professionals and institutional partners to form a Huairou Commission delegation of 250 women to the World Urban Forum III in Vancouver, Canada...read more

Face to Face with Women from Aceh:
A Tsunami Factfinding Report
By Suranjana Gupta
August 2005
In August 2005, nearly eight months after the tsunami, a Huairou Commission global delegation met with women in Aceh, Indonesia to discover how women were coping with the disaster and its aftermath...read more