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ENERGIA News Issue 2.1, February 1998

Networking Around the World

ECOWOMAN

ECOWOMAN is a loose collective of professional women scientists and technologists and of grassroots women ‘doing’ science in the Pacific.

ECOWOMAN is dedicated to:

• Promoting equal access for girls and women in the science and technology arena, advocating educational and scientific literacy for them;
• Developing linkages between professional women scientists and technologists and women's indigenous scientific knowledge;
• Strengthening the roles of women so they are able to influence the reallocation of resources in scientific research and practice;
• Effecting social change by creating a respect for women's science and technology so it can be fully shared and used as a common heritage for all;
• Ensuring that all women, including the least educated, have the type of scientific and technical knowledge which will improve their quality of life and ability to care for the environment.

In ECOWOMAN's two years of existence, it has already carried out a number of activities. One of these was the preparation of “The ECOWOMAN Fair” at the Pacific Science Congress, July 14-18 1997. This ECOWOMAN Fair included workshops, drama performances, displays and hands-on activities such as fish smoking, making solar ovens, building a drum oven and cooking on it, making traditional medicines, making an iceless cooler and making a hand-operated washing machine.

ECOWOMAN is also involved in activities related to women and energy and interested in extending these activities.
Recent activities include:

• Two workshops on the construction of solar ovens: one in October 1997 with 15 women and one in November with 20 women participating;
• A Village Workshop in Tonga, training trainers to construct three different cement stoves;
• Building detached kitchens with a Women in Development group on the island of Ha'apai

ECOWOMAN is now looking into the possibility of disseminating solar lanterns, they are still looking for a cheap enough type and for a market agent.

Any women's or community organisation can have an ECOWOMAN ‘node’ among their membership; in this way ECOWOMAN is trying to form a WEB of people with common interests and aspirations. ECOWOMAN has a newsletter. The start-up funding came from the Canada fund in the South Pacific and the newsletter and some workshops have been assisted by AusAid. A two-year grant for ongoing work has just been received from Canada/CIDA through SPPF, the South.

For further information and correspondence, please contact:
Ruth A. Lechte, ECOWOMAN, Box 9874, Nadi Airport P.O., Suva, Fiji; Tel. +679. 720003, Fax +679.721246, Email goodwillie@is.com.fj, or
Cherie Morris, ECOWOMEN, c/o SPACHEE, Box 16737 GPO, Suva, Fiji; Tel. +679.312371, Fax +679.303053, Email morris_ch@usp.ac.fj, http://www.wigsat.org/ofan/activities/ecowoman.html/

OLADE and Women in Energy: A Dead End or A New Opening?

In November 1996, the Latin American Energy Organisation, OLADE (Organización Latinoamericana de Energía) held the first international conference on the role of women in the development of sustainable energy in Latin America. The objective of the meeting was to analyse the participation and involvement of women in Latin American energy development, and women's role in strengthening energy policy decisions in the region, with a view to achieving Latin American development in the context of economic and energy growth, social equity and environmental protection. More than 60 participants from 10 Latin American countries attended the meeting, which was announced as the first in a five-event series to be hosted by women decision-makers with regard to: policy and regulation; renewable energy/energy efficiency technologies and project development and finance training.

After the meeting, unfortunately, no further initiatives appear to have been taken. There are not even a proceedings or a report of this important conference available, to our knowledge. Was the conference a dead end, or will OLADE be able to create a new opening for the role of women in energy in Latin America? We hope that OLADE will continue and strengthen their work started at the 1996 Conference, to promote the participation of women in the energy sector!

For more information, please contact:
Executive Secretary, OLADE, Casilla 17-11-6413, Quito, Ecuador; Tel. +59.32.598122, Fax +59.32.539684, Email olade1@olade.org.ec, http://mia.lac.net/olade/htms/olade.htm