Huairou Commission

Home
United States
New York, NY
Huairou Commission

Network of grassroots women leaders across the globe, working to transform communities through leadership development, peer learning and advocacy.

Website: www.huairou.org
Twitter: www.twitter.com/HuairouConnect
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVfv7RgNriljrJmxijcrmng

05/31/2026

ONE VISION CARE AS AFRICA’S STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
At CSW70, a unified message emerged care work is the foundational engine of land rights, climate resilience, and economic justice. Combining the voices of our leaders, the vision for a Just Care System is now unstoppable.
Violet Shivutse our chair lady reminds us that care is inseparable from land sovereignty. When women gain secure land rights, they become the lead architects of climate adaptation. Building on this, Naomi from Oxfam International emphasizes that true empowerment requires control over livelihoods; integrating care into policy is a systematic necessity for national productivity.
The momentum is global, as Ana from Global Alliance for Care highlights. We are centring the care economy in discussions with development banks and governments worldwide. Our vision for 2028 is to move from lamentation to action by recognizing and rewarding care as productive labour. A caregiver with a voice and land transforms an entire continent.

05/29/2026

At the Women Deliver Conference 2026, Huairou Commission member Cherry Barnuevo of Solidarity of Oppressed Filipino People, Inc. Dampa-Sofp made the case that care is not a side issue - it is infrastructure, economy, and power.

Attending as a Women's Fund Asia grantee, Cherry Barnuevo was interviewed by the Global Alliance for Care / Alianza Global por los Cuidados at the Caregivers Pavilion, where she highlighted what meaningful participation actually requires: access to resources, safe spaces, and platforms where women from marginalized sectors can speak for themselves.

Grassroots women are already delivering proven, scalable solutions. The question is whether global systems will invest in them.

05/26/2026

When women lead, communities thrive. 🌍

The Maasai community in Kenya has long been rooted in a tradition of pastoral, semi-nomadic life - and their strength is their heritage. But climate change is making that way of life increasingly unpredictable.

Our member Rural Women Network (RWN) Kenya is meeting that challenge head-on, by empowering Maasai women to add small-scale farming to their lives, without leaving their identity behind.

Through hands-on learning centers, women are discovering what farming can look like on their own terms: better nutrition at home, a buffer against climate shocks, and a new income stream for their families.

05/24/2026

From Caregiver to Global Champion- Violet Shivutse

In 2013, Violet Shivutse stood before UN Women as a grassroots caregiver from Kakamega, Kenya. Leading 2,036 members of the Shibuye Community Health Workers (SCHW), she exposed a critical gap: while global health programs provided clinical drugs, local women bore the unpaid burden of tracking patients, fighting stigma, and defending widows from land theft.

From those local roots, Violet has risen to become a premier institutional leader and global policy architect.

Key Milestones:

Global Governance: She transitioned from an outside advocate to the Global Chair of the Huairou Commission, advising the UN-Habitat Executive Board and UN Women.

Massive Scale: Her localized care model was used to build the Home-Based Care Alliance, expanding her network to over 30,000 caregivers across 11 African countries.

Structural Protections: She pioneered local-to-local dialogues that legally secured land tenure for thousands of vulnerable women.

Violet proved that investing in local caregivers creates global change.

05/22/2026

Acting locally for global impact. The theme of this year's International Day for Biological Diversity sounds like something Huairou Commission's leaders have lived for decades.

Grassroots women don't just coexist with biodiversity - they protect it. They save and exchange seeds to preserve crop diversity across generations. They monitor water sources and forest edges, catching environmental changes before anyone else does. They manage communal lands using practices that sustain soil health and native species. They pass ecological knowledge to younger generations that no scientific institution has fully recorded.

The Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework sets ambitious goals for nature. But those goals will only be met if the women doing this work every day are resourced, recognized, and at the table where decisions get made.

Local action isn't a stepping stone to global impact. It is global impact. 🌍

05/20/2026

Seven households in Kasibi Village, Zimbabwe built improved sanitation facilities - and they funded it themselves.

Through savings groups and income-generating activities organized and led by women, community members sourced materials locally and worked with artisans who trained youth in construction techniques along the way. A public health outcome, yes - but also an expression of women's economic agency and intergenerational skills transfer.

This is the model Huairou Commission member Ntengwe for Community Development is advancing: grassroots women as decision-makers who design, finance, and implement solutions for their own communities.

05/17/2026

To the Mothers Who Feed the Land and the Land That Feeds All
This month on Mother’s Day, Rural Women Network celebrates and honoured the mothers of Kajiado, Narok, and Laikipia. The unsung heroes coaxing life out of dry earth, walking kilometres for water, and passing down vital agricultural knowledge to the next generation.
Founded in 2010 by Pauline Kariuki, RWN has spent fifteen years ensuring rural mothers in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands are treated as leaders, not just beneficiaries. Across five Livelihood Learning Centres, these resilient women are mastering climate smart agriculture, turning indigenous crops into thriving businesses, diversifying incomes through beekeeping and beadwork, and stepping into county policy forums to shape the laws governing their futures.
They do not just survive drought they prepare for it. They do not just hope for a better future for their daughters, they build it one cooperative, one harvest, and one bold conversation at a time.
To every mother in our network, you are the climate solution. You are the food system. You are the future.

05/15/2026

En las tierras altas de , la organización miembro de Huairou, la Organización de Mujeres Indígenas y Campesinas Sembrando Esperanza (OMICSE), está transformando la adaptación climática en una oportunidad. A través del programa de Adaptación Liderada Localmente, mujeres de base están impulsando tres bioemprendimientos: biofertilizantes orgánicos líquidos, kits agroecológicos e infusiones medicinales enfocadas en la salud de la mujer.

Sus biofertilizantes - elaborados con ingredientes naturales por mujeres productoras rurales - fortalecen los cultivos, mejoran los rendimientos y cuidan el suelo; todo ello, al tiempo que llevan alimentos más saludables a sus comunidades y profundizan la soberanía alimentaria local. Basados en la naturaleza, liderados por mujeres y arraigados en la agricultura sostenible. 🌿

En la Feria de la Biodiversidad de noviembre de 2025, OMICSE dio vida a su marca con un nuevo logotipo, un mural comunitario y productos elaborados bajo los más altos estándares de calidad. Así es como luce la adaptación liderada localmente. 🌾

05/12/2026

Healthy plants mean food on the table. But who's watching over them?

On this , we recognize what's often invisible in global food security conversations: grassroots women are on the frontlines of protecting crops, seeds, soils, and ecosystems every day.

From Kenya to Nepal, Peru to Uganda, the women in our network are not waiting for policy to catch up. They are building community-level systems to monitor plant health, preserve local seed varieties, and respond to pests and climate shocks before they become crises.

This year's theme - Plant Biosecurity for Food Security - reminds us that protecting food systems starts at the local level. And locally led means women-led.

🌱

05/10/2026

The Bridge of Resilience. A Mother’s Day Story
Following our Building Bridges workshop in Mombasa, we celebrate a profound example of intergenerational leadership. Florence Shakafuswa and her daughters, Flora Shakafuswa and Louise shakafuswa. Florence has spent decades proving that women are architects of change. Now, her most enduring project is the mentorship of the leaders she raised.
Florence’s vision lives through the professional power of her daughters. Flora , a Lawyer, anchors child protection and gender programs at KWASSOC, turning legal theory into a frontline defence for the vulnerable. Meanwhile, Louise , an Accountant, applies strategic financial integrity to her aspirations as Chairperson for the Chibombo District.
Together, they represent the perfect harmony of grassroots conviction and professional excellence. Florence has not just passed a torch, she has empowered the specialists who will scale this mission for decades. To the mother who is just getting started and the daughters ready to lead Happy Mother’s Day.
To the grassroots women who lead with courage you turn hardship into hope and determination, building a brighter future for us all. Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers of our global community

Address

249 Manhattan Avenue
New York, NY
11211

Telephone

+17183888915

Website

http://www.huairou.org/, https://www.instagram.com/huairou_commission/, http://youtube.com/channel/UCVfv7RgNriljrJmxijcr

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Huairou Commission posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Huairou Commission:

Shortcuts

Featured

Heart River Center for Intuitive Healing

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in New York?