Climate and Care Initiative

Climate and Care for Her: Strengthening Resilience for Women in Urban Slums

For nearly a year now, Youth and Urbanism has been on the ground in Mathare – Kenya’s second-largest informal settlement – turning the invisible burden of care into visible action. Young girls and women here have always carried the heaviest load: fetching water, sourcing food and fuel, nursing the sick, and holding families together. Climate change has made that load almost unbearable.

OWe have seen it with our own eyes. The devastating Mathare floods that claimed at least 13 lives and displaced thousands of families forced women and girls to improvise shelters, care for the injured, and keep children safe with almost no support. Government evacuations left them without homes, while the daily struggle for water, sanitation, and school continued. Yet these same women and girls showed incredible strength – and we listened.

What We Are Doing: The Three Pillars We Live Every Day

We are actively tackling all three critical thematic areas:

1. Addressing the increased demand for care because of climate change We have mapped how floods, heat, and drought multiply caregiving hours. Through our ongoing activities, women and girls are now documenting these extra burdens and co-designing practical solutions.
2. Bringing care and gender equality into climate mitigation and adaptation Our workshops and dialogues ensure that every climate solution we develop respects care work and reduces – rather than adds to – women's unpaid labour.
3. Promoting decent working conditions with a gender and care lens in the just transition We are already turning "care" into green jobs by training women and girls in climate-resilient community services and advocating for these roles to be recognised and paid.

Building on three years of work through our Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA – funded by Hivos) and Youth-led Humanitarian Response (YHR – funded by the Embassy of Portugal) programmes, we launched #Climate&Care4Her to put their realities at the centre of climate action. What started as a plan is now daily reality: community dialogues, storytelling sessions, training workshops, and direct support during crises. The lessons we have learned together are already shaping solutions that work for the women and girls who need them most.

Our Theory of Change – What We Are Already Seeing

We continue to work at the intersection of climate change and care, using real lessons from VCA and YHR as our foundation. The baseline data we have collected over the past year is guiding everything we do.

Our mid-term vision is simple but powerful:

• Reduce the care burden on women and girls
• Build locally-shaped, care-sensitive climate solutions
• Create evidence that proves why care must be at the heart of every climate policy

Intended Outcomes We Are Delivering

1. Amplified voices – Women and girls are already shaping public debate through storytelling, social media campaigns, and community radio.
2. Shared agendas – Women and girls are co-creating scalable solutions that respect how care is organised in our communities.
3. Policy power – Their contributions are being taken into national policy conversations, budgets, and practice in Kenya.

These outcomes are unlocking bigger conversations: expanding the definition of care, linking care and climate justice, feminist just transitions, care as green jobs, care in climate policy, better data, and dedicated climate-care financing.

Building Lasting Change

Our sustainability is already built in. The Climate Change & Humanitarian Response and Gender Equality & Inclusivity pillars of Youth and Urbanism provide the permanent home for this work. We are also growing our own ecosystem:

• Urban Online Media platform
• Virtual Youth and Urbanism Research and Innovation Hub

These structures ensure that the voices, solutions, and evidence we create together will continue long after any single project ends.

Join the Movement

#Climate&Care4Her is not just a project – it is a community-led movement that proves care and climate justice belong together. We invite partners, funders, policymakers, and fellow citizens to walk with us.

The women and girls of Mathare are ready. Are you?

Youth and Urbanism – Turning lived realities into lasting resilience.

How We Are Embedding Gender and Human Rights

Kenya has strong laws on paper – our Constitution (2010), the two-thirds gender rule, CEDAW, the Maputo Protocol, and many others. But implementation remains weak.

We are closing that gap every day:

• We analyse these legal frameworks and translate them into simple, powerful messages shared through storytelling, training, and community dialogues.
• We organise inter-sectoral forums and movement-building activities so women and girls can directly push duty-bearers for enforcement and gender-responsive reforms.

The result? Women and girls in Mathare are no longer just beneficiaries – they are rights-holders and leaders driving change.

Alignment with Kenya's Climate Laws and Policies

Our work is fully anchored in Kenya's climate framework:

• Article 42 of the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to a clean and healthy environment – we make sure women and girls are not left behind.
• Article 69 obliges the state to manage natural resources sustainably and eliminate harmful practices – we hold leaders accountable through evidence and advocacy.

By linking care and climate, we are helping Kenya meet its own commitments while protecting the most vulnerable.

• Key Milestones:
• Official registration and launch, marking our shift from ad-hoc initiatives to a structured entity.
• Early involvement in protests and advocacy, including discussions on government accountability during Kenya's youth-led movements.
• Expanded volunteer programs, engaging young people in leadership training and community projects.