Empowering Women in Low-income Communities in Colombia by Recycling Construction and Demolition Waste

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is becoming an increasing concern worldwide due to the rise of construction practices in the face of population and urban expansion. Despite this, there has been a lack of significant advancements in community-based approaches for managing this waste. Through this research, we hope to contribute to gender equality and women empowerment by utilizing community-based research methods to analyze how women in low-income communities in Colombia can find safe and meaningful work by gaining skills in extracting value from C&D wastes, business administration, and leadership. In this presentation, we will discuss the importance of utilizing community-based research to develop just and sustainable technologies for the empowerment of women by using our research on recycling C&D waste in the context of low-income communities as a guide. It is important to note that this research is in its preliminary phases and will not be completed until March 2023, thus the final outcomes and conclusions are currently unknown.