On Sunday hundreds of women turned out in a mass show of support for the people of the South-western peninsula of Trinidad where the government plans to allow the building of two aluminum smelter plants. 
Industrial issues don't affect women, right? Furthermore, we don't think that country people can articulate the issues that affect them.
I’ve been attending meetings with community members who are against the introduction of the smelters in their community. Rural women have been arming themselves with information, in cases where the so-called powers that be think that they don't have a right to it. It's really inspiring to see how they operate. They're organised and focused. They're doing their research and getting their children involved too. And on top of all of that they're just really wonderful people. Everytime I go down to Chatham I leave with a bag I can't carry full of fruits, yams, coconuts.
I look into the future and it alarms me to think that these people's lives will be destroyed for profits that will not come to them. Because what these woman represent is a vision of Trinidad and Tobago that maybe we who live in the city areas don't get a chance to see very much of. And maybe I'm being naive and nostalgic, but it's the kind of Trinidad that I want to save. That I want us to maintain, even as we strive for development.
It's almost a cliché, this notion of the strong Caribbean woman. Whose back is broad to carry the weight of emotion, family and community. But if women are the culture bearers, the nurturers, the ones with the responsibility for future generations, then it stands to reason that we take a stand on what we do to the natural environment.
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