Social Work Empowerment Model for Mainstreaming the Participation of Rural Women in the Climate Change Discourse

Despite the direct linkage between climate change and social work practice, the involvement of social workers in addressing climate change issues remains discouraging. This is attributed to lack of exposure in climate change issues during training as social workers leading to lack of adequate tools for social workers to integrate climate change issues into their day-to-day interventions with clients. This paper is aimed at providing guidelines for social work practice in mainstreaming the participation of rural women in the climate change discourse. Social workers and rural women are absent from climate change interventions at professional, practice and personal levels. The precarious impacts of climate change manifesting through floods, droughts, water scarcity, depletion of the natural resource base, cyclones and heat waves disproportionally affect women particularly those in rural communities. Women’s vulnerability to climate change is emanating from exclusion in climate change decision-making processes, cultural norms and patterns which confines them to household responsibilities, lack of adaptive capacity, low literacy levels, patriarchal dominance and high poverty levels. As such, social workers are required to enhance social change, through empowerment and liberation of women to participate in discussions on climate change like men. A model is presented based on experiences in southern Africa to provide some guidance for social workers on how best to mainstream gender dimensions in climate change interventions. This would foster social and environmental justice, social resilience, equal participation in the climate change discourse, capacity building and adaptive capacity for rural women.