{"id":7174,"date":"2021-04-08T12:09:14","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T12:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/?page_id=7174"},"modified":"2021-04-20T06:18:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T06:18:55","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For over 25 Years, We Champion Grassroots Women Around the World<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

In 1995, the\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission began in a tent for\u00a0grassroots\u00a0 women\u00a0leaders working relentlessly at the\u00a0<\/i>4th World Women\u2019s Conference in Beijing\u00a0<\/i>to advance their inclusion in global development processes joined together around a common goal.\u202f<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the outset of the Beijing Conference, GROOTS International – a global network of grassroots women organizations – and the USA based National Congress of Neighborhood Women came together to ensure that the issues facing grassroots women were finally addressed\u00a0in the global women\u2019s rights agenda.\u00a0 At the time, there was little space for civil society, especially the poor urban and rural women\u2019s groups, to participate at the High Level Conference, and the grassroots women leaders organizing was especially underfunded. Without the representation of grassroots women, the daily issues confronting poor communities, such as access to food, livelihoods, water and sanitation, were not being prioritized.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner content_placement=”middle”][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]The gap of lacking poor women’s voices in the feminist movement was recognized by the UNIFEM, who emerged supportive of grassroots women\u2019s inclusion, and have awarded GROOTS International with funding to ensure participation of grassroots women\u2019s organizations in the Beijing Platform for Action.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

GROOTS International and the National Congress of Neighborhood Women hosted multiple regional meetings of grassroots women to consolidate their agenda going into the 4th World Conference on Women. They launched a 50\/50 campaign, where each professional woman going to Beijing was encouraged to sponsor a grassroots woman leader to go come along. Meanwhile, the Mothers Centers of Germany mobilized hundreds of women to create a patchwork quilt as a symbol of all the grassroots women coming together.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”6617″ img_size=”full” el_class=”w100″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]In the village of Huairou, an hour outside of Beijing, GROOTS International together with the National Congress of Neighborhood Women organized a Grassroots Tent for grassroots women\u2019s organizations to gather, learn, and share ideas, strategies and experiences to take home to their communities.\u00a0Every day women\u2019s groups from different countries and regions hosted caucuses, which became a tool to collectively organize and to uncover that cross-cutting issues, such as land and housing, were transnational links of solidarity among the grassroots women\u2019s groups. The tent gathering brought grassroots women together to amplify their voices and messages grounded in lived experience and on-the-ground expertise across the women\u2019s movement and the UN.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt was in this coming together that the global women\u2019s movement really grew up. Finally, women went from fighting with each other and fearing each other\u2019s\u2019 narratives and agendas to coming together to working collectively as one.\u201d\u202f<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013 Jan Peterson, co-founder and Honorary Chair of the Governing Council<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Credits: Part 1 of the film We Are The Leaders directed by Lyn Pyle.<\/span><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″ el_class=”video-col2″][vc_column_text el_class=”first-section-video”]Impressed by the organizing of grassroots women and their partners, Wally\u00a0N\u2019Dow, then Executive Director of the UN Commission on Human Settlements, \u201ccommissioned\u201d fifty women leaders to monitor the Habitat II conference, naming the group the Huairou\u00a0Commission. For the first time, an organized group of women had a central role to play in the human settlements arena and capitalized on the opportunity to demonstrate the political power of locally connected grassroots women\u2019s groups coming together at the global level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years, the Huairou Commission has evolved from an advisory body to Habitat II into a global movement for grassroots women\u2019s empowerment in development. With the secretariat located in the Neighborhood Women\u2019s House hosted by the National Congress of Neighborhood Women in Brooklyn, New York City,\u00a0 the Huairou Commission reaches grassroots women organizations in 45 countries. \u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”middle” disable_element=”yes” css=”.vc_custom_1608523589643{padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”6616″ img_size=”full” el_class=”w100″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row el_class=”rm-sp4 unique-per”][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Huairou\u2019s\u00a0Unique Perspective<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

We\u00a0seek\u00a0for a paradigm shift in how development policies are created and implemented, supporting grassroots groups not as victims or projects, but as agents of change and active development partners. The\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission has grown into a global grassroots women\u2019s network championing this fundamental shift.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We believe that grassroots women\u2019s voices must be heard and the women must speak for themselves in development circles. The movement embraces a bottom up organizing approach informed by grassroots women\u2019s knowledge and experiences of development realities in their communities, illustrated by community risk assessments executed by women themselves. Grassroots women are supported in their leadership through systems of mentorship, and on-going peer-learning across the network.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”6613″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1617608724880{margin-top: 70px !important;}”]<\/p>\n

Jan Peterson, Sandy Schilen and Lana Finikin on the history of the Huairou Commission and building global grassroots women’s movement<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Part 1: Building Grassroots Tent: global organizing leading to the 4th World Conference on Women<\/p>\n

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Part 2: Claiming Space: defining grassroots women’s movement<\/p>\n

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Part 3: Looking 5 Years Ahead<\/p>\n

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Claiming Space in the Development Policy\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

The\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission organizes using the social movement strategy of building local to regional to global networks and alliances to advance the movement\u2019s goals. This organizing logic enabled Huairou members to claim space as a partnership entity in the feminist movement and in the development circles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the inception, we have united grassroots women\u2019s organizations and their allies to uncover the shared experience of common development issues in grassroots communities that led to building thematic networks for advocacy and peer learning. We facilitated grassroots women networking around issues of land and housing through Women\u2019s Land Link Africa, care-giving and HIV\/AIDS through Home Based Care Alliance, resilience through Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience, or safety through Safer Cities, that enable for the grassroots women to engage in cross-cultural, borders transcending dialogues exchanging knowledge and best practices in community development.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Huairou\u00a0Commission\u2019s network building approach has evolved from uniting across thematic campaigns\u00a0to consolidating local, national, regional and global networks that employ bottom-up organizing tools and put grassroots women at the center of decision-making and partnership dialogues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tools like Peer Exchanges and the\u00a0Local to Local\u00a0Dialogues alongside the Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience facilitate local level network organizing to unite voices. National Assemblies on Localizing Agenda 2030 facilitate national level grassroots policy and partnership campaigns. Huairou members form Regional Committees and host regular Regional meetings to take stock of regional membership networks, and to plan for regional policy and partnership priorities. Globally, the member elected Governing Council hosts an annual membership meeting to take stock of the movement and revise strategic priorities for partnerships, policy and on-the-ground activities. Our Community Practitioners Platform for Resilience members meet at Global Brain Trusts regularly to evaluate the Community Resilience Funds campaign.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”6765″ img_size=”full” el_class=”w100″ css=”.vc_custom_1618377336903{margin-top: 30px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1618377241358{padding-top: 15px !important;}”]Organized at the local, national, regional and global dimensions,\u00a0we facilitaterecognition of grassroots women as important development partners, claiming more power in the development arena. Since 2005, the\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission has held ECOSOC status with the United Nations, which grants grassroots women on-going presence in the UN policy spaces.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1617957848521{padding-bottom: 0px !important;}” el_class=”history-partner-impact”][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Partnerships & Impact<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Throughout its history the\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission has fostered grassroots women\u2019s empowerment and leadership in order to put their voices and knowledge at the center of development processes. In this regard, we have built a\u00a0large scale\u00a0movement of grassroots women leaders and their allies. Working with partners and allies, we have championed redefining meaningful partnerships with communities in development, and we worked to make grassroots women\u2019s voices heard and institutionalized in development decision-making.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1996, we brought over a 100 grassroots women leaders and allies to the Habitat II conference and lobbied for 136 references to women and gender in the Habitat II Agenda; 20 years later grassroots women were invited to serve as experts in drafting the New Urban Agenda (Habitat III).<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”6769″ img_size=”full” el_class=”w100″ css=”.vc_custom_1608629995749{margin-top: 30px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]Our relationship with the UN Habitat remained strong with our leaders now members of the UN Habitat Advisory Group on Gender Issues (AGGI).\u00a0\u00a0We have also claimed advisory roles for grassroots women and their allies with the UN Women, UN DRR, World Bank, UNDP, UN DESA, FAO, and the International Land Coalition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 2019 membership survey highlighted that belonging to the\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission had positive effects on increasing\u00a0our members\u2019\u00a0political influence and participation locally and nationally. This is illustrated in significant increases in their participation in advisory bodies, Memorandums of Agreement with government institutions, and access to decision making spaces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission evolved from a coalition of founding networks to a bottom-up grassroots women led organization. In 2018, the Commission hosted its first Global Grassroots Women\u2019s Congress, where\u00a0Huairou\u00a0membership elected the Governing Council from among its advanced members with grassroots women comprising \u2154 of the Council.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our role in women\u2019s movement has also matured and\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission has been selected by the UN Women to become a Global Leader of the Generation Equality Action Coalition\u00a0– a multi-stakeholder coalition bringing governments, philanthropy representatives, inter-governmental organizations and select few civil society organizations to accelerate gender equality. Grassroots women leaders will join forces with governments of Germany, Mexico, South Africa, Spain and Sweden, OECD, Melinda and Bill Gates foundation, and the UN Capital Development Fund to champion Economic Justice and Rights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With this kind of progress over the last 25 years we are looking forward to expanding our reach in representing grassroots women to be at the center of sustainable development.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1617881633450{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}” el_class=”fonder-top-image”][vc_column width=”1\/3″ el_class=”fonder-image”][vc_single_image image=”7213″ alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text el_class=”fonder-houro-new”]<\/p>\n

Founder and Honorary Chair<\/h2>\n

Jan Peterson, Honorary President of the Huairou Commission, was awarded the UN-HABITAT Scroll of Honor in 2009 for four decades of activism championing the rights of grassroots women and their movements for better human settlements. She is a founder of three organizations \u2013 the National Congress of Neighbourhood Women, GROOTS International, and the Huairou Commission. Under her leadership, the Huairou Commission\u2019s membership has expanded to include organizations in more than 50 countries across the globe.<\/p>\n

Through her strong advocacy, Jan has ensured that the global women\u2019s movement incorporates grassroots women\u2019s groups and community development priorities for sustainable human settlements. In addition to raising more than USD 4 million for work with grassroots women, Jan has supported pioneering initiatives that include the Local-to-Local Dialogue methodology and the Grassroots Women\u2019s Academy held at each World Urban Forum.<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row el_class=”houro-history-founder”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1617964241038{padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\n

In her coalition-building work, Ms. Peterson draws on decades of experience in education, policy making, and community organizing. At the global level, Jan Peterson has led sustained advocacy to ensure that grassroots women are recognized as experts in development, who have innovative solutions to problems affecting their lives. As a result of these pioneering efforts, global agencies such as UN-Habitat, UN Women and UN ISDR have included women from poor communities in advisory and planning groups.<\/p>\n

In the Carter White House, she worked as the Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison, as well as in the Office of Policy and Planning in Action (Peace Corps\/VISTA). She has taught at the New School Graduate Program in International Affairs and was a member of the Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, chaired by Madeline Albright. She continues to work as a leading organizer on housing and neighborhood development issues her own community in Brooklyn, New York<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”cs-1″ el_class=”history-timeline”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” el_class=”bg-banner”][vc_column][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1588239617067{padding-top: 200px !important;padding-bottom: 200px !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”History” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”custom-h2″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1607947240228{padding-top: 50px !important;}” el_class=”no-padding”][vc_column][vc_row_inner el_class=”no-padding”][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text] For over 25 Years, We Champion Grassroots Women Around the World\u00a0 In 1995, the\u00a0Huairou\u00a0Commission began in a tent for\u00a0grassroots\u00a0 women\u00a0leaders working relentlessly at the\u00a04th World Women\u2019s Conference in Beijing\u00a0to advance their inclusion in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7174","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7174"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7222,"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7174\/revisions\/7222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huairou.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}