Different Strokes for Different Folks: Reaching the Impacted

• In Event: Virtual Roundtable Session 3
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Roundtable Discussion on Barriers and Potentials in Using Social-Emotional Learning Towards Climate Justice: A View from South Asia

Proposal

Climate Change is said to be an equalizer. Its impacts are likely to be felt across the globe. However, that is where that common thread stops! The impacts unpack layers and layers of vulnerabilities and sub vulnerabilities, criss-crossing geographies, demographics, socio-economic status and exposure to knowledge and awareness about their particular segment.

Belonging to a country that currently, and unenviably, captures the pole position on the Global Vulnerability Index, the layers taken on many shades and hues, depending upon access to learning resources and tools of advocacy. Being a vast, and a populous and multi threat country, Pakistan battles Climate induced disasters which are cataclysmic, as well as slow onset. The frequency and ferocity of storms and hydro disasters capture the optics, but it is only recently that academics, researchers and practitioners are looking at the wide scale of impacts of rising heat, which triggers a domino effect on different ecosystems.

Accessibility has always posed a challenge; accessibility of knowledge, and of tools to build coping mechanisms to deal with the new normal of the climate crisis. While strides have been made in the formal sectors in developing and delivering the tools and learning, those who lie outside the pale of formal structures of learning are the ones who remain unaware, hence unprepared.

Pakistan has a large population of out of school children, and unlettered adults. For them, the tools that can reduce their vulnerability are inaccessible. They remain oblivious to formal school curriculum, wherever in place, disaster preparedness literature prepared by government agencies and NGOs, documentaries, films and promotional material prepared for and run on mainstream and social media and other such aids.

We also have to bear in mind that this is largely the segment of population that is at the lower end of the socio economic strata, so they are served with a double whammy! It is they who need to be approached through a creative approach of using a mix of traditional and modern communication tools.

Taking the lessons contained within the formal courses prepared for children of school going ages, this unserved segment of the population can be made aware of, and equipped with the requisite knowledge tools like the traditional storytelling sessions, through street theatre, songs, street art, role play, especially in time of disasters leading to displacement to camps. These also work as coping tools for emotional distress accompanied with displacement and uncertainty about the future that follow in the wake of climate disasters.

We need a trained cadre who can reach out to this very large and vulnerable segment to bring the indigenous communication tools and adapt them to the new learnings that need to be imparted. They should also be equipped with the eye that can identify ‘collaborators’ within these vulnerable communities who can then bridge the gap by taking on this role in a continuum, and develop organic skills of climate change communication in local languages.

Author

• Afia Salam, Indus Earth Trust