“We began our project recognizing that limited co-learning capacities and differences in power, status, class, gender, values, aspirations, and ethnicity constrain collective action (Armitage et al., 2008). Through the APN Goal project, we are glad that we collectively understood and challenged these limitations. Researchers, communities, students, institutions, and stakeholders had immense opportunities to co-learn, cross-learn, and build long-term relationships across India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan, and beyond to act together at local and regional levels. Together, we developed locally grounded learning materials respecting data sovereignty. By acknowledging communities’ capacities and creating platforms for co-learning and cross-learning, we sought to trigger adaptive transformation towards gender-oriented climate change adaptation and disaster risk resilience. I would say working with all women leaders within the project and with APN was fantastic and empowering.”

"I joined GoAL hoping to contribute, but I came away with far more than I gave. In Gampaha, I walked through villages still recovering from floods and landslides, and sat with women who told us how they had lost their crops, their savings and sometimes their homes. At our community workshop in Sudewella, schoolchildren wrote letters and drew pictures of what disasters meant to them - some of those drawings I will never forget. Working alongside researchers and community partners from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka taught me that research is not only about collecting data. It is about listening, learning from one another and growing together.”

"Being part of GoAL was a golden opportunity for me. As we sat with families in our villages and spoke in Santhali, elders shared memories of a time when the rains came on time, the ponds were full of fish and the forest gave us everything we needed. Women told us how far they now walk for water, and how they still turn to the plants their mothers taught them about when someone falls ill. Recording these stories for our podcast series, I realised that our memories are a kind of knowledge - they show what has changed and what we must protect. When I spoke at the International Policy Round Table at IIT Roorkee, I carried my village’s voice into a room of policymakers and experts. For the first time, I felt that our experiences truly mattered in the conversation on climate change.