Youth Water Stewardship Women Leading the Way

This project aims to boost and support young women’s water stewardship and agency in flood efforts in Kampala’s informal settlements. Women in these communities already manage water resources, respond to floods, and adapt to crisis. Yet their contributions are often informal, undervalued, and unsupported. Involving women directly and deliberately in water stewardship and flood resilience efforts is not only a matter of equity, but of effectiveness and building solutions that are targeted, resilient, and push for systemic change long-term. Women have unique insights into household- and community-level vulnerabilities and priorities, and their involvement ensures attention to real needs. Aside from specific flood interventions, empowering women in leadership challenges male-dominated decision-making structures and skills building boosts their confidence and social networks. In the project, young women are capacitated as water stewards and are supported directly with micro grants for flood prevention. We will work with gender-inclusive flood adaptation designs for public spaces. This means that we design and implement flood resilience strategies that actively consider and address the different needs, experiences, roles, and vulnerabilities of all genders, in this project particularly women and girls, and marginalised groups - all the way from planning, to decision making, to implementation process.