“Here in Africa, it is a man’s world. Where there are nine men there is one woman,” Christiana Oche.

Christiana Oche is a 2024 Certificate in Climate Justice and Faith graduate from Abuja, Nigeria – a city and country severely impacted by climate change. As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns have shifted leading to intense periods of drought followed by heavy rains that wipe out crops, homes, and livestock. Christiana has seen how women bear the brunt of these impacts: from needing to travel further to collect water to struggling to feed hungry children.

Looking around at who was discussing these impacts, Christiana noticed that women were often not at the table and if they were there, they were silent. “The hardest part was bringing the women in to be actors on climate change. There are very few of us willing to raise our heads.”

For her final project, called a Sacred Action Project, Christiana aimed to get more women involved in efforts to address the climate crisis. Christiana was already involved with the Africa Faith Actors Network for Climate Justice, an interfaith network of faith leaders working to address the causes and impacts of climate change, so she decided to find ways to bring more women into this network.

At the next Africa Faith Actors Network for Climate Justice meeting, Christiana asked the predominantly male group if they could ask the women in their communities to attend the next seminar. She asked the Christian men present to invite more Christian women and the Muslim men present to invite more Muslim women saying, “You guys just need to give us a little platform and you won’t believe what we can do. Just try us out to see what we can do.”

To her delight, the men enthusiastically reached out to the women in their communities inviting them to attend the network’s seminar in Spring 2024. Christiana helped to plan the seminar which took place on April 20, 2024 with dozens of women from both the Muslim and Christian faiths. The seminar included a focus on Gender Equality and Religious Freedom and a focus on the empowerment of women. Participants engaged in deep conversations about the role of women as agents of change in combatting climate injustices and participants acknowledged the unique perspectives and leadership skills that women could bring to the network’s efforts.

Christiana’s efforts to bring women into these conversations was a great success. The forum unanimously adopted a climate action resolution calling for the expansion of interreligious collaboration among women to address climate justice. Christiana is now planning an international forum on woman and climate justice with speakers from throughout Africa in April 2025. Follow the Center for Climate Justice and Faith on Facebook and Instagram for more information when it is available.