Listening to women

Mary Alalo works to help communities in the Solomon Islands prepare for climate change by involving women in the planning about what's needed when natural disasters hit. The model of prioritising women's perspectives has been adopted by other development projects and Mary is part of a network that is able to quickly deploy supplies to women where they are needed most. The close consultation has built up trust in the communities and this will allow future disaster responses to reach women and girls more effectively because of this critical groundwork.

“The country is highly vulnerable to natural disasters like flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and climate change,” Mary says.

She’s part of a government project to help communities prepare for disasters by including women’s voices in the discussion.

She says she’s seen the devastating impact of climate change first hand on her home island of Ontong Java,

“We are impacted by coastal erosion and sea level rise because they are low-lying Islands,” Mary says. “Half of the graveyards are already under the sea and you can see the bones of those who have died are exposed. So when it comes to climate change, it is real for us who live in low-lying islands and disaster risks are real for the Solomon Islands.”

“Half of the graveyards are already under the sea and you can see the bones of those who have died are exposed.”

Mary facilitates community discussions about climate change and natural disasters in areas that are identified as more vulnerable to extreme storms, floods and tsunamis. Most importantly, Mary helps women set the priorities for disaster planning in their community.

Over the past decade, Mary has worked with communities across the country. She recalls one example of a community that had been hit by a tsunami a few years earlier causing widespread damage and loss of life.

“The village is close to the beach and for them to evacuate to safety they had to use a steep bush trail,” she says. “So we helped the community by building some good evacuation routes so that whenever wherever they need to evacuate they can do it safely.”

The decision to build the improved bush tracks for evacuation routes was driven by women’s participation in the process. The community-wide collaboration that ranks the needs of the vulnerable groups like the elderly and women with young children, made the development of the trails the top priority.

Mary says it’s always women who are hit hardest by disasters and climate change because essentials like water are sometimes tenuous.

“Most of our communities are affected by water problems either from flooding or droughts and in all these situations women are the ones who collect the water,” Mary says. “Then they spend less time on income generating activities like gardening or selling produce at the market.”

This is why water is critical to the discussion on disaster preparedness because it’s so central to women’s lives and how they spend their time. 

“You often find water sources are very far from the village,” Mary says. “Women walk 3 or 4 kilometres just to collect water. When they come back, they have to carry a child in one arm along with drinking water and buckets of wet laundry.”

Mary says that with water systems already stretched women have to work even even harder during disasters.

“As mother's they have to care for the children and make sure there's enough water for everyone,” Mary says. “So that's why most of the projects are infrastructure and water projects because women say we want clean water.”

Despite patriarchal norms in the Solomon Islands, Mary says women play crucial roles in the community. 

“Women in Solomon Islands are the backbone of any family and the country as a whole.”

“Women in Solomon Islands are the backbone of any family and the country as a whole,” Mary says. 

In order to avoid hoc development planning and the frequent lack of transparency in male dominated exchanges, Mary and her colleagues make women’s participation essential to the whole process. 

“It's Important making so when we make it mandatory that women should be a part of the community consultation,” Mary says. “Then the men have no choice but to make sure women are there.”

The women-centered approach even shapes the scheduling of training and workshops on public health messages and resilience techniques that Mary and her colleagues organize. 

“Whenever we do training we have to do it at night when women have finished their home duties then they can participate,” Mary says. 

As a woman working in this field, I feel really proud that I am supporting our communities to really understand how they can build their resilience.

Mary says more women are taking roles in disaster reduction and development projects and this shift makes it easier to connect with women in the community.

“When we started the project, I was the only woman on the team and now we have three other women,” she says.

Despite the progress in creating roles for women on her team, Mary says there is a long way to go ensure women and girls have a voice in the discussion about disaster preparedness, at all levels.

“When we started the project, I was the only woman on the team and now we have three other women.”

“I think the government needs to encourage more women to engage in education that is focused on climate and disaster risk reduction,” Mary says. “Our national curriculum for primary and secondary needs to include climate and resilient development. If they’re not exposed to it, a lot of girls will go to the traditional subjects of nursing and teaching.”

Mary says there are even barriers at the family level for women to work in the field of disaster preparedness.

“I found that some women would like to work in this field but their spouses are not understanding,” Mary says. “It’s work that requires a lot of field travel and for some women the spouses don't allow them to do all this field travel with time away from home.”

“In my heart, I really want these remote vulnerable communities to be reached.”

While Mary works in Honiara, her home in Ontong Java is weeks away by ship so trips home are infrequent. She knows that no matter how many communities they reach, the need will always be greatest where it’s hardest to reach.

“In my heart, I really want these remote vulnerable communities to be reached,” Mary says. “They are the most vulnerable when it comes to climate change impacts and disaster.”