Hillary Clinton pays homage to Ela Bhatt

Ahmedabad: Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Sunday said heat caused by climate change poses an additional challenge to women workers in informal sectors and a global ‘Climate Resilience Fund’ will help tackle this challenge.

Addressing members of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in Ahmedabad on the first day of her two-day visit to the state, Clinton said a group of concerned people has come together to help start the climate resilience fund which will be the first-of-its-kind in the world.

“You’ve overcome so many obstacles, broken through so many barriers. But now you face an additional challenge--the challenge that climate change presents–of heat,” Clinton said at the event to mark 50 years of SEWA as a trade union and to pay homage to its founder and renowned social activist Ela Bhatt.

“Whether you’re in construction, or you are in waste recycling, or you are in plastic, or you are a street vendor, or you are a farmer, whatever you are, your challenge to make an income to support yourselves and work throughout the days of overwhelming heat will be the next big problem that SEWA will help you try to resolve,” she said.

Clinton said she had spoken to SEWA director Reemaben Nanavati over the new struggle heat was presenting as it would affect every job that members of the women’s trade union represents.

Speaking on the ‘Global Climate Resilience Fund’, Clinton said Clinton Global Initiative, Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, Algorand Foundation, Council for Inclusive Capitalism, and the American India Foundation will be working with SEWA.

“These will be some of the partners with SEWA to begin to address this very significant challenge. We are going to be working over the next months and years with SEWA and all of these committed organisations and others who will join, because this is not a problem just for SEWA,” she said.