How I Got Started, and Stay Engaged, in Climate Work
Diane Shisk [International Commonality Reference Person for Care of the Environment] invited us to tell how we first got engaged in climate work and what we do to stay engaged.
I started by calling five grandmother friends and inviting them to my house. Over my kitchen table, we talked about the climate situation and shared food and feelings. We were feeling increasing concern for our beloved grandchildren—for their future and for all children’s future.
We proposed actions we could take as grandmothers and elders. We agreed that as elders we were smart, had many decades of experience, had time available, and were willing to take risks.
In the following months we kept connected through more kitchen meetings; tending a common town garden; making meals together; traveling together to talks, hearings, and protests; and risking arrest to stop a fracked-gas pipeline.
Soon after we started this group, I attended a climate meeting in the next town. I talked with the woman sitting next to me. She was not only the founder of that climate action group, but she and a friend of hers were about to start an organization to mobilize mothers for a livable future.
Would I want to join their founding group? Yes, I would! It combined my love of community organizing and working with grandmothers, mothers, and parents. The group, Mothers Out Front, was women-led and had an exciting capacity-building model—which had been lacking in my previous organizing work.
With the tireless, brilliant, and loving work of many mothers and grandmothers, this organization is now in its seventh year and has more than twenty-five thousand members in five U.S. states and hundreds of new women leaders.
What keeps me going is staying connected, staying active in Mothers Out Front, and discharging a lot. I have a list of friends to take walks with and three comfortable chairs on my front porch. I hope for many porch visits and work sessions in my near future!
Arlington, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders in care of the environment
(Present Time 208, July 2022)