The Women Who Lead

I meet with Yasmina Benslimane on a Friday. She’s tired, and understandably so. “I wear many hats,” she says. These heavy hats are how she advocates for women in the Southwest Asia and North Africa, or SWANA, region.

Born in Morocco, Yasmina remembers her mother, who raised her and her sister. “My mom really had to fight to provide for me and my sister,” Yasmina says, remembering her mother’s fight against the archaic, misogynistic stigma against women who raise children without men. Despite their struggles, Yasmina’s mother made sure to keep her daughters informed by taking them to work with Women’s Cooperatives, where Yasmina observed the many harsh realities of women in Morocco.

“I would see the conditions in which they lived, which was, like, a single bedroom for an entire family of 5 or 10 people,” Yasmina recalls. “When I was eight, I would see girls my age sent to rich families to work as little maids, or girls in their teenage years forced to get married, but boys would be sent to school.”

“I think that’s what inspired me to start doing what I do.”

Unlike many of her peers, Yasmina and her sister spent much of their childhood picking up garbage at the beaches, wondering how people could treat something so beautiful so horribly. As she grew older, Yasmina gradually realised the similarity between the ways people disrespected the environment and women.

Nature and women were endlessly taken advantage of and often harmed in the process of exploitation. “This is because we don’t have enough women in environmental policymaking,” Yasmina pointedly comments.

Wanting to see more female leadership in the climate justice sector, Yasmina started Climate Sirens in 2024 – an intersectional feminist, youth-led organisation dedicated to developing climate solutions that honour and protect Indigenous practices. With just under 20 team members, Climate Sirens is a fast-growing social enterprise that generates profits and offers a social support network for female environmental leaders. Yasmina is passionate about helping women in SWANA countries, such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen.

Climate Sirens aims to drive climate justice and sustainable development by focusing on three goals: First, to help women-led cooperatives in the SWANA region scale their Indigenous, natural beauty products. Second, equipping young women with the knowledge and tools to help them lead in the information and technology sectors. Lastly, the organisation advocates for reproductive justice and gender equity.

“We are starting to establish ourselves and secure funding for these goals, so I still need to generate income, so I also work as a consultant, creating reports, articles, and digital communications on topics such as climate justice.” In her work, Yasmina focuses on the displacement and migration of marginalised, Indigenous young women from the SWANA region.

Currently, Climate Sirens' daily operations involve high-level advocacy work, such as preparing strategies for the upcoming COP in Brazil. One of the organisation’s demands is to end visa discrimination against the SWANA activists, allowing equal access to international forums. They also facilitate Healing Circles, which offer a virtual and in-person outlet for artistic expression and emotional release. The Healing Circles also provide a safe, supportive space to network with fellow eco-feminists, share self-care tools, and explore healing.

Climate Sirens is also working to generate new opportunities that empower young women.

“We are running a campaign called Butterflies of the Mediterranean, supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation, spotlighting young women from the Mediterranean region who are undertaking climate justice work, in the form of digital activism,” Yasmina adds. When you go to Climate Sirens’ Instagram profile, you can find artfully and personally collaged profiles of young female climate activists where you can learn where they’re from, and their focuses in their own voices.

Another project by Climate Sirens aims to provide women with more economic opportunities while reclaiming and preserving the traditions of colonised beauty products, such as argan oil. “We've created a line of six natural beauty products, including argan oil, rose water, and many other things. The next step for us is to create the first digital market.”Yasmina e

xplains that the goal is to make Climate Sirens a social enterprise model, in collaboration with women's cooperatives, Morocco’s economic development initiative that focuses on empowering women and preserving traditions.

“It's an intergenerational partnership. We bring the feminist youth innovation digital space, and they bring their ecological knowledge that preserves our traditions.”

“It was born out of the rage I felt being in all the high-level spaces for a long time,” Yasmina recalls many instances where she was invited to global spaces like the UN or COP. “We often see women from our region not being compensated properly for their work, or can’t travel to these high-level places because of their visas,” she laments. Climate Sirens’ work provides comfort and support to ecofeminists in the SWANA region, as it brings these women together to share, connect, and heal.

“I’m excited for this year’s COP in Brazil,” Yasmina shares. “It is way more accessible for us than going to countries that require visas.” Unfortunately, the travel limitation has been an issue for Climate Sirens. However, this year, Yasmina’s determined to claim the space the women of Climate Sirens deserve.

“We have a lot of momentum and resources to build sustainable and self-sufficient income streams,” she shares in excitement. It’s an exciting time for Climate Sirens, with notable donors like the Doria Feminist Fund and Daughters for Earth, as well as several significant grant nominations.

For Yasmina, as tiring as it is, taking on these responsibilities for the SWANA women is a way of protecting nature itself.

And for those who would like to follow her footsteps, she has a few pertinent things to say: “Your lived experience is expertise. So don’t let anyone make you think you need ten master’s degrees to be valuable enough.”

“Build your own platform. You have everything you need within you.”