Description of the project: The Marathwada region in India has experienced five serious droughts since 2010, leading to debts, farmer suicide, and climate migration. Women farmers are not recognised as agricultural workers nor landowners by the state, barring them from access to public subsidies. Earth Refuge created an Emergency Response (ER) legal toolkit to defend the rights and raise the voice of farmers struck by climate disasters. Working with local lawyers and established women’s groups, they aim to develop a rights-based social protection model for women
farmers. It involves 2,000 female and male farmers lacking land and labour rights and indirectly impacts over 25,000 people threatened by climate migration.

 

Climate impact
	Emergency Response (ER) toolkit is a free education medium for community owned, collective response to climate disaster.
	Combatting climate-driven migration via legal empowerment of local lawyers and farmer collectives.
	The participatory action-research (PAR) approach includes skill-building, networking, and collaboration.
Gender impact
	Legal support for marginalized women to exercise their rights to land and livelihoods.
	Includes women participants through local women’s groups and participatory approach.
	Ensures equal access via private WhatsApp groups, puppetry productions, local podcasts, comic books, etc.
Scalability / replicability
	Global academic and activists’ network conducting legal research and data collection to influence law and policy making at local, national, and international levels.
	The participatory action-research (PAR) approach includes skill-building, networking, and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
	Evaluating the impact of the toolkit prior to the transfer to other districts or countries.