An afternoon Learning Exchange to explore community resilience and human development in the context of climate change adaptation in El Salvador and Canada
November 10th, 1-4pm
Liu Institute for Global Issues, UBC
Description:
Four Salvadorans are visiting BC this fall and will be engaging in learning exchanges in rural BC as well as in Vancouver and Victoria. They come from the northern part of El Salvador, Chalatenango, which has a history of political violence, community resilience and healing.
While in BC, they will be sharing about some of this work, particularly on our current project: Exploring community resilience and human development in the context of climate change adaptation in El Salvador and Canada. In partnership with Canadian NGOs Drishti Center for Integral Action and One Sky, and with mentors and colleagues at the University of Oslo, in this project, we are exploring how balanced attention to the experiential, cultural, behavioural and systemic dimensions of disaster risk and climate change adaptation can promote more relevant policies and much deeper forms of resilience.
Climate change is a difficult phenomenon to conceive of—it is occurring over timelines that we often don’t think in, it is overwhelming to envision the changes that it might produce, and it is challenging to plan for a future that we can’t yet see or barely imagine. As a result, particularly in rural communities in the developing world, climate change science can be misunderstood, bewildering, and often disempowering. Rather that starting with the science, we began using photo voice with communities, in which local people use photography to explore the meaning of climate change in their lives in practical, real ways. This supports local people to draw on their own meaning-making about the issue, and thus evokes a greater sense of empowerment and resilience. The photo voice was accompanied with community meetings and, eventually, adaptation planning.
Please join us in an afternoon of presentation and discussions on what it means to be a resilient community in the face of turbulent change and what it means to engage transformation towards a tomorrow that works for all.
More info: www.drishti.ca or email gail@onesky.ca.
More about the Centro Bartolome de las Casas:
The non-profit organization Centro Bartolome de las Casas has developed an unique approach to integral community well-being. This includes the social dimensions of well-being, such as gender equality work (particularly with their masculinities program), fostering alternative local economies (particularly using barter systems), and supporting adaptation to climate change (as communities increasingly experience climate-related disasters and food shortages). And it also includes the individual dimensions of well-being, such as addressing post-war trauma, using innovative energy-based and psycho-social methods for healing, and supporting local leaders in creating transformative change. Notably, this group of practitioners are deeply skilled at facilitating the interior interior processes of healing, empowerment, and leadership that are often necessarily to effect exterior changes in systems.