Around the world, women are leading and shaping solutions to the climate crisis. Women’s funds like Mama Cash play a crucial role by directing resources to local women-led organisations working where climate justice, gender equity, and community resilience meet. But what makes this support effective, and what does it look like in practice?
Funding local, women-led organisations create tangible, lasting change. Women, girls, and trans and intersex people often face the worst effects of the climate crisis. Because of their lived experience, they can lead with urgency, insight, and a deep understanding of their communities and context. They also act with the understanding that climate justice is connected to other struggles, like gender inequality, racism, and authoritarianism, and work on long-term, sustainable solutions that tackle these together.
At Mama Cash, we move money to women-led grassroots organisations that are often overlooked but incredibly effective. Our grantee-partners are preserving ecosystems, protecting rights, shifting policies, and training new leaders. They lead local action and influence global change, while contributing directly to the Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality, clean water, life on land, and ending poverty.
Women’s funds like ours play a vital role in getting money directly to the communities driving climate action. This approach works because it centres those most affected by the climate crisis, people and communities with the most at stake. And when climate solutions come from the ground up, they’re more inclusive, long lasting, and just.
Keep reading to get to know three amazing feminist grassroots groups that are creating change in their communities and building lasting, inclusive solutions.
Extractive justice in action: Dhaatri
“Indigenous people have their own knowledge. They know exactly what to take from the forest without destroying it,” says Ashwini from Dhaatri. A Mama Cash grantee-partner since 2014, Dhaatri is advancing land rights, preserving Indigenous environmental knowledge, and building grassroots feminist leadership in India’s most marginalised communities.
Dhaatri brought the rarely heard voices of Indigenous and Dalit communities in India to the 2024 UN Climate Conference, challenging their ongoing exclusion from climate conversations. One core mission is preserving Indigenous knowledge that’s rapidly disappearing. “Youth don’t know the festivals, the songs, or even the traditional foods,” said Ashwini. By documenting this wisdom, they keep alive sustainable ways of living that protect the forests and biodiversity.
Dhaatri’s impact also lies in linking local struggles to national and international platforms. As part of Women Against Mining in Asia, they are one of the few women-led groups in the region working on extractive justice. Most mining-related organisations are male-dominated, but Dhaatri’s presence is shifting that narrative. These networks build visibility and strength where voices are often suppressed.
Through a 10-month eco-feminist course, Dhaatri trains youth in Indigenous rights, traditional environmental knowledge, and grassroots advocacy. The course also covers forest rights, knowledge and laws related to Dalit and Indigenous peoples, and basic human rights. “We wanted the community to not depend on us,” Ashwini said. The goal is to build community autonomy and resilience; key ingredients for climate justice from the ground up.
Feminist policy change: Klima Action Malaysia
While Dhaatri builds grassroots strength in India, Klima Action Malaysia (KAMY) is leading change in the policy corridors of Kuala Lumpur.
With Mama Cash’s support, KAMY ensures that gender justice isn’t an afterthought, but a foundation of climate solutions. This year, they submitted a policy paper calling for a gender-just energy transition and published a report to guide decision-makers in approaching climate from a feminist and human rights perspective. In discussions with the Prime Minister’s Legal Department, they pointed to Malaysia’s “Right to Life” as a legal argument for gender-just climate action.
KAMY also helped shape the country’s new Climate Change Bill, making sure women, Indigenous peoples, and youth are structurally represented in future climate laws. Their Women in Climate Position Paper called for a national focal point on gender justice in climate governance.
Youth leadership at the frontlines: Green Girls Platform
And while KAMY is influencing institutions in Malaysia, young women in Malawi are mobilising their communities from the ground up. Green Girls Platform proves that feminist climate leadership can start early and shows the ripple effect of local action from national to global level.
As floods and droughts increasingly threaten lives and livelihoods in Malawi, Green Girls Platform trains young women on climate adaptation and resilience. Since 2020, the group has grown from 150 members to over 10,000. Led by women and girls, they help their peers protect their communities from climate change and influence climate policy.
In 2022, five young women represented Malawi at the COP27 global climate talks. “The government asked us to be the bridge between the voices of girls and young women and the Malawi government on climate justice,” they said. Since then, even more girls have joined to influence key decision-making spaces and represent Malawi around the world.
Green Girls Platform offers training in climate literacy, environmental rights, and leadership. Members lead projects like tree planting and climate education – especially in communities that are often directly affected by climate change.
Their work shows that when girls and young women are given the tools and space to lead, there is a multiplier effect: their communities are better prepared to adapt and respond to climate challenges, strengthening a country’s overall resilience.
Climate justice needs feminist funding
To meet global climate goals by 2030, we must scale up investment in local, women-led organisations. Their work is complex and takes time, so they need flexible, multi-year funding from a range of climate funders.
Investing in these groups means helping Dhaatri to preserve Indigenous knowledge that protects biodiversity, enabling Klima Action Malaysia advance gender-just climate action, and supporting Green Girls Platform to train young leaders and plant trees for a greener future.
When women are part of designing and implementing climate-related solutions, we can accelerate effective climate action, leading to better outcomes for everyone.
The real question isn’t whether we can afford to support feminist climate movements. It’s whether we can afford not to.
Want to see climate justice in action? Follow us @mamacashfund or visit mamacash.org to stay up to date on the impact our grantee-partners are making.
Q4 2025 Climate Solutions Magazine
We encourage you to read this edition of the F20 Climate Solutions Magazine in full. The articles focus on the transformative potential that future-forward, bold policy can have.
Expand the preview below and immerse yourself in these thought-provoking articles.