You empowered women

In 2022, International Rivers held the the first Women and Rivers Accelerator for women river defenders from marginalized communities in the Global South knowledge-sharing. The app piqued Violet's interest as the perfect tool to support her work monitoring the health of the Ati River.

At the pilot of the Women and Rivers Accelerator, Nirwala Gowda and Violet Matiru crossed paths across continents. The Women and Rivers Accelerator – also known as WARA – is a new 3-month leadership program for Indigenous and local river activists. It provides much-needed opportunities for women to share knowledge, learn skills, and make connections.

Nirwala Gowda, from India, is an expert in GIS mapping for water management. Violet Matiru is a Kenyan environmental scientist who works on promoting sustainable development and river conservation, ocusing on the Ati River basin. As part of the program, Nirwala shared an app she had developed to facilitate community

Nirwala and Violet are now embarking on a joint project using the app to collect valuable local and Indigenous knowledge about the Ati river and its ecosystem. This is just the beginning of their shared vision to achieve a common goal of promoting sustainable river conservation. The collaboration between these two leaders is an example of the importance of the Women and Rivers Accelerator to bring together women from around the world who, in protecting rivers in their community, are also joining forces as global citizens of the world to ensure clean, healthy, free-flowing rivers for us all.