Roots to Rights: Dhaatri’s Path to Community Care

We’re excited to share the stories of some amazing feminist organisations that are making a real difference in advancing climate justice. Over the course of 2025, we’re posting stories about some of our grantee-partners that attended the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference. As we approach COP30, these stories show us how communities most impacted by climate change are also the ones implementing and leading the solutions with lasting impact. 

By Jailan Zayan  

We all want a safe place to call home, a land that holds our stories and futures. But for many Indigenous and Dalit communities in India, this basic right is under threat. 

That’s why Ashwini of Dhaatri made it a priority to attend the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference. As one of the few voices representing these communities, she shared stories of resilience, challenged the ongoing erasure of marginalised communities, and built solidarity on an international stage. 

Including women in land ownership 

Dhaatri is building practical, community-based solutions that protect both people and the environment. Its approach weaves together women’s rights, environmental sustainability, and the preservation of Indigenous knowledge and culture. 

A major focus is ensuring that land titles include women’s names. This protects women from being pushed out of their homes and land. “If the husband dies, the land goes to the son, the brother-in-law, or father-in-law, leaving the woman without land,” Ashwini explained.

Dhaatri works at multiple levels to protect land rights, starting with families, then communities, and sometimes involving officials.

Passing on knowledge  

Land is also deeply tied to tradition and knowledge. As younger generations lose touch with their cultural roots, traditional practices are disappearing: from sustainable hunting to food preparation. “Youth don’t know the festivals, the songs, or even the traditional foods,” Ashwini said. “They go to urban schools and eat potato curries, not the tubers (edible root crops) or wild foods they used to get from the forest.” 

To keep these traditions alive, Dhaatri documents them and supports efforts to pass them on to future generations. They collect oral histories and anecdotal stories about forest resources from elders and experts such as healers, midwives, and seed keepers.

“Indigenous people have their own knowledge… their own wisdom,” Ashwini said. “They know exactly what to take from the forest without destroying it.” 

Building on this work, Dhaatri is creating a community collective care space and biodiversity library that reimagines the idea of a library. It will house resources used by Indigenous women in their daily practises with their land, forests, wild food, agriculture, medicines, and spiritual activities. The space aims to educate future stewards and serve as a care space for the women: a place for healing, dialogue building, and knowledge exchange. 

Another way Dhaatri’s passes on knowledge is through their 10-month eco-feminist course, which trained 15 youth in Indigenous rights, traditional knowledge, and grassroots advocacy. “We wanted the community to not depend on us,” Ashwini said. The course also included training on forest rights, knowledge and laws related to Dalits and Indigenous peoples, and basic human rights. 

For Ashwini, staying connected to local communities is essential: “National efforts mean little without connections to grassroots realities. Change starts with the people on the ground.”  

Unrestricted funding  

This caution also makes fundraising more difficult, in a landscape that is already competitive and complicated. Despite these constraints, Dhaatri stays true to its principles and rejects funding that conflicts with its mission. Instead, it relies on partners who support it without conditions.  

Mama Cash flexible funding has been critical for Dhaatri, allowing them to respond to urgent needs across issues like agriculture, cultural preservation, and women’s rights, without being tied to rigid project requirements. “Mama Cash is very flexible for us,” Ashwini shared. “We can use the funds where they’re needed most.” Mama Cash has given Dhaatri unrestricted support since 2014, which allows them to stay focused on its mission without making compromises, build trust, and stay accountable to the communities it serves. 

Organisations like Dhaatri are leading effective, community-based solutions that are already showing real results and have the potential to scale even further. Yet women-led organisations still face major barriers to access climate finance.  

Lasting climate justice means resourcing those most impacted and recognising their work as essential.

While world leaders prepare to enter into negotiations on climate policies and finance at the upcoming Climate Change Conference, voices like Dhaatri’s must be heard and supported. Their locally driven work is already making a difference – and holds the key to more inclusive, sustainable, and gender-just climate action. 

You can help sustain this work. Support Dhaatri in advocating for its communities by donating today. 

Find more stories about Mama Cash partners working on climate justice, ahead of the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference, here.