The Mahila Housing Sewa Trust (MHT), an Ahmedabad based organization which mobilizes and empowers women to improve and upgrade their habitats, has won a prestigious award under the Climate CoLab Contest – Absorbing Climate Impacts 2018, powered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
The contest focused on how climate risk insurance could be linked with other forms of social protection to help vulnerable communities absorb climate impacts and there was a worldwide participation from 72 organizations, out of which, MHT has won the Popular Choice Award (selection done by the voters). The proposal titled, "Poor slum women investing in resilience through savings cum microinsurance" pitched on ‘Tapping women’s habit of savings to manage climate induced risks through innovative chit fund-cum microinsurance scheme’. Under this project, the proposed actions will contribute to the existing Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan and Surat City Resilience Strategy.
As a winner, MHT will attend the InsuResilience Global Partnership Forum in 2018 during COP24, where MHT will present its work to a community of practitioners, policymakers and private sector representatives. MHT’s community based resilience model is women-led, integrated, evidence based, and focuses on innovative communication strategies to promote a culture of resilience action.
So far, MHT has trained women and youth leaders across 100 plus slums as Climate Saathis (partners) in 4 states – Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, to lead action in their communities. More than 2000 families have adopted resilient solutions to combat heat stress, deteriorating water quality and growing threat of vector borne diseases.
The contest was funded by InsuResilience and the UN Climate Resilience Initiative A2R: Anticipate, Absorb, Reshape, a global multi-stakeholder initiative launched by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during COP21 in Paris.
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