🌟 Conference on Equality and Climate in Prague 🤩

On Wednesday September 3rd, 2025, the Czech Women's Lobby held a conference on "Equality and Climate: Gender Aspects of the Climate Crisis." The conference was independent of our project, but because the topic coincided, Eva from GIC NORA also spoke during the panel discussion, briefly mentioning our project in addition to Czech and global issues. Her main topic of discussion was intersectional climate justice. 🤝

🌟 Are the high school students aware of the impact of (toxic) masculinity? 💪🌳

On May 12th, 2025, GIC NORA intern Kaelonni Lashinsky traveled to Ostrava, Czech Republic to hold presentation at Jazykové Gymnázium Pavla Tigrida. Throughout the morning, Kaelonni held four 45-minute-long presentations on the topic of Incel Influence. She chose the topic due to the rise of the behavior in her home country, the United States, but to also bring awareness to how easy this behavior can go unnoticed, and to teach how it affects everyone. Throughout her presentation, she explained what an incel was, and dived into the technical terms within that environment; manosphere, red pill analogy etc. She brought up influential people who promote this type of misogynistic mindset, like Andrew Tate. And she talked with students on how it is gaining awareness through TV shows and social media. 📱

❓Why is this topic important in the relation with the environment?

Because as we find out during the training workshop, toxic masculinity is often linked to environmental attitudes through its emphasis on dominance, control, and rejection of traits seen as "feminine," such as care, empathy, or vulnerability. This mindset can lead to the dismissal of environmental concerns as unmanly or weak, discouraging sustainable behaviors and prioritizing exploitation over conservation. As a result, toxic masculinity can contribute to resistance against climate action and environmental responsibility, reinforcing harmful systems that degrade both society and the planet. It is to highlight that Kaelonni mentioned the project Greenclusivity during her presentation. She discussed what the project is for the four groups, and she told them about the recent three-day workshop activity held in Brno. She left a QR code for the Instagram page. She also discussed why the topic of the project is so important, and she sparked curiosity and interest among high school students in the intersection of gender and environmental inequalities. 🌿

🌟 Bridging Feminism and Environmentalism: A working and advocacy group 🌍♀️🌿

As the climate crisis deepens and social inequalities persist, the GreenClusivity project responds to an urgent need to unite gender and environmental justice movements on a European scale. One of its most significant achievements so far has been the establishment of a dedicated working and advocacy group, “Gender and Environment,” within the Czech Women’s Lobby. This group is now a vibrant hub for collaboration, strategic planning, and policy development at the intersection of feminism and environmentalism.

At the heart of this effort is a newly formed advocacy working group of at least 10 members, designed to grow into a network of feminist and environmental stakeholders. Over the course of the project, this group will have some internal meetings, but also public seminars for external stakeholders. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

⚠️ Stakeholders gathered in this working group build a deeper understanding of how gender and environmental issues intersect. For instance, participants explore why women tend to be more eco-conscious or why they are more vulnerable to environmental harm. These insights often trace back to structural inequalities.

Through Czech-Slovak collaboration, the working group develops outputs that align with and reflect key aspects of European green policy 🇪🇺. By producing materials in English, these strategic documents, such as advocacy recommendations and policy papers, can be used not only locally but also across the EU. This multilingual accessibility empowers other organizations and networks to advance ecofeminist advocacy and develop targeted strategies on a European level. 🌍

💡Participants in the working group are already engaging in impactful learning sessions 🧑‍🏫, covering topics such as:

• gender and nuclear energy,

• climate litigation in the context of the Global North and South, 

• the circular economy and others.

These schooling and discussions bridge experiences and enrich the group’s understanding and strategies.

🌟 Three Days of Learning, Sharing, and Inspiring Change – GreenClusivity in Brno, Czech Republic 🌿💚

🎉 We’ve just wrapped up an incredible three-day educational event in Brno as part of the GreenClusivity project! This training event took place from Monday 7 to Wednesday 9 April 2025.

As a team made up from members of four partner organisations: Gender Information Centre NORA, Learnable, Envirostopa, and the Czech Women’s Lobby, we spent three powerful days diving deep into the intersections of gender, environment, and social justice. The program took place in the welcoming spaces of Vesna and Tři Ocásci – big thanks to both venues for hosting us, and especially to Tři Ocásci for the thought-provoking talk on their philosophy and community approach. 🏡☕ And what did we do?

🔍 The event kicked off with a compelling lecture by our colleague Tamara Jačisko Nasri, exploring gender, the environment, ecofeminism, and various intersectional approaches.

💥 We continued with an interactive workshop on the health impacts of the climate crisis, led by medical students Justyna Pařízková and Annkatrin Reiner, drawing on their experiences in refugee camps and beyond. This was followed by a thought-provoking session by Tadeáš Ždárský on hegemonic masculinity and its links to environmental issues.🇺🇸 

🗽 Kaelonni Lashinsky brought an international perspective with a discussion on current developments in the U.S., focusing on how political decisions affect women, marginalized communities, and the environment.

🔚 We closed the event with an inspiring session by Katarína Kováčová, who shared tools and approaches for addressing intersectional topics in the context of social and environmental justice.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us, shared their insights, and helped us envision what an inclusive and sustainable future can look like. The main objective of this training event was to train the expert team working on the GreenClusivity project to achieve the best possible results through the project. See how did it look in photos below! 📸