Dear ReWilder,
“Communities are not projects, communities are systems. They are fascinating, they are complex, and they change.”
We are so much more than the parts that make us, and when we work together as a group, we are given the opportunity to string together our individual voices to become something so much more than our singular selves. In times of climate crisis, when the world feels unstable and precarious, it is the cumulative sound of many voices singing (and shouting) together that drives our momentum for change, for adaptability, resilience, and for hope.
“So many needs are met when you engage with communities in a holistic manner, and also take time. Relationships are important. Listen, they have a voice. Just maybe previously that group of people wouldn’t have been given a voice, or space to voice out their opinion.” - Siya Myeza
The short film above is part of a series we produced for Action 24 and the African Climate Reality Project. In this film, we follow Siya Myeza from the Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG), an organisation that works with community partners in Cape Town for empowerment by facilitating spaces to question water governance, and introducing tools to challenge the politics of water. Myeza highlights how climate realities are not experienced the same within different communities; how our most marginalised and vulnerable communities are at the battlefront of these experiences.
Climate change is impacting communities, specifically in rural areas, and as the environmental conditions begin to change because of a warming planet, so do the social systems that live within it. Issues that communities face include increased vulnerability to water shortages, failing crops in drought and floods, diminished biodiversity resulting in less resilient ecosystems, and reduced natural resources that many rural communities depend upon.
“Africa is likely to be the continent most vulnerable to climate change. Among the risks the continent faces are reductions in food security and agricultural productivity, particularly regarding subsistence agriculture, increased water stress and, as a result of these and the potential for increased exposure to disease and other health risks, increased risks to human health.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4.
Siya’s hope for these communities lies in empowering them to use their voices, educating them on their rights, and giving them the political agency to create community-led initiatives, because, “If our systems, at a governance level, don’t change; if the priorities of our governments stay the same, then the vulnerabilities of these communities] will be exacerbated”.
The key is to allow communities to lead themselves 🤝🏽
Siya highlights how ‘water’ has become a political signifier in cities like Cape Town. For too long, clean water has been representative of wealth, separation, and elitism. Droughts, lack of adequate water infrastructure in townships, and dirty and unsafe water are realities for many communities in South Africa. As Siya says, “Water becomes a political tool to control. It becomes a very dangerous topic. Our work is to go into communities, to try to disrupt power by creating a space where communities can question, and understand the politics around water.”
If change is not coming from a governance level, then communities need to be empowered and educated in order to help themselves. The key is not to talk for communities, but to give them the space to talk for themselves:
“When a community is aware, and has been given the tools, then their agency is facilitated or given space, and a lot can happen. They can resist things that undermine their humanity, they can challenge things that deprive them of pride, they can negotiate. They become very political in a way that empowers them, but also in a way that really gives meaning to the word ‘freedom’.” - Siya Myeza
Translating climate change rhetoric into lived experience 🌾
One of the major challenges of our time is to act as a global community to combat the effects of climate crises and biodiversity loss. How do we rally and advocate and make change when the language that is used to communicate these issues is exclusionary and inaccessible to communities on the ground? For too long, ‘climate’ discourse has existed in academic boxes and scientific language that doesn’t translate to communities at the forefront of these issues.
“The inability to describe or even relate to the literature of climate change or environmental literacy in townships is a huge block. We talk about it at a very high level that alienates someone who doesn't resonate with that word but, at the same time, they suffer the consequences every day.” - Siya Myeza
So, what is the solution?
Locating individual experience and lived realities in these global narratives is the key. Siya describes the experience of using a vegetable garden as a means through which to tell the story of climate crises. Using food and farming here as a signifier of global issues situates the problem into something lived, tangible, and easily understood. Siya acknowledges that asking someone to think about climate change when they don't have food on the table or a form of income is difficult, and the key is to change the way we talk about these issues. To engage communities at the forefront of climate crises in these conversations, it is important to change the way we frame these issues. It is not something over there, it is the water we drink, the food we grow, and the fundamental ways in which we all live our lives. Climate crisis rhetoric needs to leave the world of scientific jargon and be handed to communities to translate into their lived experiences of the world.
Empowered Communities will lead the way to a Just Transition 🌍
The collective voice of communities has the potential to create impactful and durative change in the way that we respond and adapt to changing climates. Communities need to be allowed the space to communicate their own lived experiences and translate global narratives into embodied ones. The abstract and jargon-centered language of climate crisis is a hindrance to our collective ability to respond and make change. We need to start with addressing the issues that communities at the forefront of climate crises face, and then we can join our voices to tackle the biggest crisis facing our global community of people and planet.
“I believe that there is no environmental justice without social justice.” - Siya Myeza
News from ReWild Africa 🐾
We’re looking for freelancers to assist us with some up and coming projects throughout Africa, if you know any passionate filmmakers, editors or storytellers, send them to our FreeWilders freelancer ecosystem here.
If you know of a solutionary that is making a positive socio-ecological impact and needs their story told, reach out to us here.
Watch Animating the Carbon Cycle to get a better understanding of the role of biodiversity for ReWilding efforts. Produced by Wild Foundation and the Global ReWilding Alliance.
Watch out for the documentary we created for the African Climate Reality Project on the Waterbear network next week (17th July ) - See the trailer here - and sign up for a free account on Waterbear for some great content on ecological restoration.
Wild Regards,
The ReWild Africa team