Participation of Women and their Contributions to Climate Communication in the City of Batac, Ilocos Norte, Philippines

Abstract

This quantitative and exploratory study was conducted to find out the participation and contributions of women in the implementation of climate communication initiatives in the City of Batac, Ilocos Norte. An interview schedule was used to gather data from 115 women-respondents in the 14 urban barangays in the city. All data sets were tabulated and organized, as well as processed and interpreted narratively. The women-respondents, who are all Ilocanos, are predominantly middle-aged, college or vocational education graduates, married, salary earners, non-Catholic Christians, and affiliated with service-oriented organizations. An overwhelming majority of them claimed they always participate in climate communication initiatives. They play six communicative roles, in which information disseminator is the most frequent, and they use both interpersonal and mediated communication channels. Their main contribution is information dissemination, and they expect better climate communication outcomes. They experience various facilitators and barriers in their participation, which are grouped into attitudinal/emotional, interpersonal, physical/external, and physiological factors. Moreover, the computed correlational coefficient indicated significant associations between the women’s attributes and their participation in climate communication. Such findings could serve as bases in crafting policies and in implementing efforts to strengthen women’s communicative roles and sustain their participation and to make climate communication initiatives in Ilocos Norte more participatory.