Background
The International Day of Peasant Struggles (17 April) is a moment for RWA in collaboration with TCOE to honour and commemorate the lives, struggles, and resistance of peasants, small-scale farmers, farmworkers, fishers and rural others across the world. In our region, rural women farmers, farmworkers and fishers stand at the intersection of land, seed, water, climate and life itself. We grow food, harvest from rivers and oceans, preserve seeds, and sustain communities often quietly, often invisibly, yet with profound impact feeding nations.
At the same time, we are navigating multiple and overlapping challenges:
- Loss of land and access to water bodies
- Environmental degradation and climate shocks
- Industrial agriculture, extractive mining and fishing practices
- Limited recognition of their knowledge and leadership
Yet within these realities, there is also strength. Rural women continue to organise, to share knowledge, and to build systems rooted in care, sustainability, and dignity through agroecology, small-scale fisheries, and collective action. As the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA), this work is carried collectively across the region. RWA continues to document lived realities, strengthen grassroots organising, and support community-led solutions grounded in care, sustainability, and dignity. Central to this work is also engagement in national, regional and global advocacy spaces. RWA has contributed to global human rights processes through United Nations submission on the Right to Food and through a United Nations regional UNDROP submission both speaking on global trends and challenges affecting peasants and other people working in rural areas. These submissions bring forward the lived experiences of rural women farmers, farm workers and fishers across multiple countries, highlighting persistent issues such as land dispossession, climate impacts, gender discrimination, weak policy implementation, and the erosion of indigenous seed/food systems
Thus, this webinar aims to firmly center these lived experiences as rural women farmers and fishers, as affected communities and as rights holders, knowledge holders, and leaders shaping the future of food systems and food sovereignty.
Purpose
To create a reflective and engaging space that amplifies the voices of rural women farmers and fishers, while fostering dialogue and engagements with institutions responsible for advancing and protecting peasant rights, the right to food, and ecological justice.
Join Us!
RWA Southern Africa is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: International day of peasant struggle Meeting with interpretation
Time: Apr 17, 2026 14:00 Johannesburg
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84777690023?pwd=M12hwn9d9JOruAznPPuL9lNrTrCWJy.1
Meeting ID: 847 7769 0023
Passcode: 5VDPak
