Indigenous Information Network

The Indigenous Information Network is a women-led organization in Kenya that supports grassroots women’s frontline responses to the climate crisis in rural pastoralist communities and works to strengthen their demands for human rights.

The Indigenous Information Network makes sure Indigenous women in Kenya are equipped and trained to adapt and respond to the dangers of climate breakdown.

With MADRE’s support, the Indigenous Information Network works on several levels:

  • Leveraging traditional knowledge to develop sustainable agriculture and income-generating projects

  • Participating in local and global policymaking to influence decisions that affect their livelihoods

  • Ensuring their voices are heard in the international conversation around the role of women in combating climate catastrophe

Why we work in Kenya

The Indigenous Information Network is organizing Indigenous women and girls to create sustainable communities.

In Kenya, Indigenous Peoples are on the frontlines of climate change. They face frequent, severe droughts that kill the crops and animal herds that communities depend on for survival. Women and girls are tasked with the heavy burden of securing water for their families. To make ends meet, many parents still pull their daughters out of school and marry them off for a dowry.

a group of Indigenous Kenyan woman look on as one woman hoes the ground to plant seeds

Sowing Solidarity

With MADRE, the Indigenous Information Network works in rural communities to build protections against climate destruction, such as greenhouses and rain harvesting projects. They mobilize to bring Indigenous women climate defenders to local and international decision-making spaces, where they can advocate for funding and policy support for their sustainable climate solutions.

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an Indigenous woman in Kenya is bent over pouring water from a water tank

Repurposing Power

The Indigenous Information Network aids Indigenous communities to become more self-sufficient by installing water wells and tree nurseries, lessening their reliance on exploitative corporations.

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The Indigenous Information Network advances women and girls as leaders in their communities, providing them training on social, political, and economic issues and working with policymakers to include them at all levels.

Speaking out for women and girls

an Indigenous Kenyan woman from the shoulders up smiles into camera

“Building movements has been the most successful thing. We give each other strength and we give each other hope. We are not alone. Being together and working together gives you more strength. Indigenous women succeed a lot because we have sisterhood.”

Lucy Mulenkei Executive Director, Indigenous Information Network
a cutout photo of Lucy Mulenkei smiling at the camera

MADRE worked with the Indigenous Information Network to provide water storage tanks and seedlings to farming communities in the Transmara region of Kenya.

Women farmers are able to store clean drinking water for their families through drought.

They can combat deforestation and protect local water sources from erosion and contamination.

YOUR SUPPORT IN ACTION

BRINGING GRASSROOTS LEADERS TOGETHER TO GROW THEIR POWER

MADRE and the Indigenous Information Network convened 50 Indigenous women farmers from two Indigenous communities in different regions of Kenya. They received trainings on women’s human rights and ways to resist the climate crisis and were able to share strategies and build alliances.

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Indigenous women in Kenya dance and laugh together

Poppy Miyonga

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