Women leading river protection
East Java, Indonesia · 2019–2024
The Brantas River is the lifeline of East Java — stretching 320 kilometers, it supplies drinking water to tens of millions of people. But factories discharge untreated waste, plastic chokes the water, and riverside forests are disappearing. In the AKSI Brantas program, a collaborative effort uniting Indonesian and Dutch organizations to protect and restore the river, women and youth took the lead: they learned to measure water quality, advocated with local authorities, and built green enterprises. Five years on, their approach has become a proven model for community-driven river protection.
The AKSI Brantas approach
Together with partner organization ECOTON, we developed an integrated methodology that starts with the problems women experience daily — pollution, waste, and loss of nature in their immediate living environment — and actively involves youth to monitor, analyse, and take action.
From local concerns to evidence-based action
Women’s groups and youth are supported to make problems visible and substantiate them using accessible citizen-science methods: water quality measurements, microplastic analysis, and GPS mapping of pollution sources with photos and location data. Local signals become well-founded evidence that can be presented to village authorities, environmental agencies, and river authorities.
Strengthening position and voice
A core element of the approach is strengthening the role of women in environmental decision-making, with active involvement of youth. The approach builds interconnected capacities: monitoring and analysing water quality and environmental damage; organising women’s groups with a clear mission; formulating proposals and putting environmental issues on the agenda with authorities; and communicating with media and other public stakeholders. Women are guided to effectively participate in village meetings and consultations with government agencies, while youth are trained in data collection, communication, and public outreach.
From signals to concrete solutions
The approach does not stop at analysis. Women’s groups and youth develop and implement real, practical solutions: greening riverbanks with native herb and vegetable gardens, establishing fish reserves, small-scale ecotourism, setting up local waste collection and composting systems, and running refill shops with reusable and refillable packaging to reduce single-use plastics at the source.
Learning together and scaling up
Through the AKSI Brantas Alliance for Women Empowerment, women’s groups across villages are connected with each other, actively supported by engaged youth. This network stimulates knowledge exchange and the adoption of common standards, enabling the approach to be replicated across multiple villages and river basins — scaling not top-down, but community to community.
What it achieved
The training helped me overcome my fear of men in uniform at official meetings. Now I am invited as a speaker at village and district level. — Lilik, women’s school SEKOPER
→ Read the stories of the women’s groups
What’s next
The AKSI Brantas Approach is now also being applied along the Balantieng River in Sulawesi, where youth and schools have joined forces alongside women: they mapped polluted sites using GPS, planted 1,000 trees along riverbanks, and introduced plastic bans in their schools.
→ Read about our results along the Balantieng river
Makara Foundation is bringing the model to new rivers and communities — wherever women and youth are ready to take the lead.
→ Download our AKSI Brantas report here:
Support this work
With your contribution, we can train more women and youth, restore more riverbanks, and free more villages from plastic.
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