Earth Today | Jamaican women get their say on climate change
… Adopt visual storytelling as tool
Published:Thursday | July 6, 2023 | 12:07 AM
A GROUP of Jamaican women are benefiting from Envisioning Resilience, an initiative that is training them in visual storytelling about climate change impacts, while also giving them the chance to advance their own point of view on the required response.
GirlsClimate Action for Resilience and Empowerment (GirlsCARE) is collaborating with the National Adaptation Plan Global Network (NAP-GN) and Lensational to bring the initiative to the local participants.
“Six young women from across rural and urban Jamaica have been in the training programme since March, learning about climate and gender, and the technicalities of photography in two-hour, face-to-face seminars bi-weekly, and attending field trips for more practical experience,” GirlsCARE founder Ayesha Constable told The Gleaner.
“At the end of the project on August 18, we will convene an exhibition with NGO and government stakeholders to showcase the photo stories produced by the trainees, highlighting household- and community-level impacts of climate change, and locally led efforts at resilience building,” she added.
Among the group of six is Danelle Fraser, 32, of Rose Town. She has high praise for the initiative.
“The Envisioning Resilience initiative is an awesome programme. Being behind the camera learning and capturing the different impacts from climate change, and hearing the different effects from the other trainees, is very eye-opening and a needed experience for all of us,” Fraser said.
“Getting together on Saturdays for training sessions is something I look forward to,” she added.
Envisioning Resilience began with a pilot to give women from Kenya and Ghana the chance to have their experiences inform their own countries’ NAP processes.
“Participants undertook training in photography and storytelling, while learning from experts who helped them link their observations to climate science, enabling them to develop visual stories that documented their experiences with climate change and their visions of resilience,” reads a 2022 story on the subject from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which is a partner in the delivery of the initiative.
“Over a period of nine months, the Lensational team and professional photographers mentored the trainees, supporting each one as they developed their personal stories, while also bringing them together to develop a collective story for the group,” it added.
Ultimately, those women were able to present their lived experiences to policymakers, which provided new insights while giving them a seat at the table of climate planning.
The partners are looking to replicate this in Jamaica as the locals deepen their knowledge of climate change and reflect on how they are personally affected. The initiative also offers them a new source of income with the chance to sell their images through Lensational online.
Progress on the initiative comes as efforts are made to accelerate adaptation planning for climate risks and threats, and with the meaningful participation of women championed as pivotal to that process.
Climate change, to which small island developing states (SIDS) such as Jamaica are especially vulnerable, presents diverse challenges – from extreme hurricanes and droughts to sea level rise and associated coastal degradation.
SIDS have therefore made the case for the prioritisation of adaptation, which, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is about “making adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects”. It also taps into opportunities that may arise from the changing climate.
Jamaica has progressed its own adaptation efforts over recent years, as reflected in its Adaptation Communication (AdCom) 2022, which was prepared under the guidance of Jamaica’s first female head of the Climate Change Division, UnaMay Gordon, and former adaptation officer with the division, Le-Anne Roper.
“Jamaica is in the preliminary stages of developing its first NAP, having received approval from the Green Climate Fund readiness and preparatory support programme in April 2021. The overall goal of the NAP project is to develop an inclusive, systematic, and participatory national adaptation planning and implementation framework for Jamaica by 2025,” reads the AdCom.
“The NAP preparation process will be used to advance Jamaica’s national adaptation planning framework, building on existing governance and coordination mechanisms, strengthening the capacities of sectors, and enhancing institutions already putting appropriate systems in place to monitor and evaluate adaptation benefits,” it added.