“Climate change affects us in two ways – our pockets and our well-being.”
These are the sentiments of Michael Aneo who hails from Guam as he shared the impact of the phenomenon on persons with disabilities in his homeland. Michael is the climate change officer for Guam and is a person with a disability. He recently was part of a delegation of persons with disabilities who are Climate Change officers from 5 countries who attended a weeklong Validation workshop in Fiji.
This was Michael’s first time to Fiji and was an eye opener for him. Speaking on the impact, Michael adds that persons with disabilities in the four States in his island have had to adapt to ensure that they are able to put food on the table however this is also affected with the impacts of climate change.
“I work with persons with disabilities specifically those with physical disabilities. AT times, it is really hard especially when they have a family of their own. The President of our OPD sells food parcels so that he is able to have some kind of income that will in the end meet the family needs. Nowadays because our root crops are affected, the prices have skyrocketed and because of this sometimes to make the food parcels, more money is used, and this affects the cost. It is hard nowadays to sell food parcels because it very expensive.”
Michael and the other climate officers who were present all shared the same sentiments with regards to the impact of climate change impacts. This also highlighted the need for a collective approach to addressing disability in the climate change arena.
“Persons with disabilities are more adversely affected. It is the extra cost of disability that many do not want to acknowledge. For example, our members use assistive and mobility devices to get around, then they have to do income generation jobs and then when ready, go out and market their goods. At times, it is hard to get a good sale. Then we have to struggle back home and the cycle repeats. For those that plant, when a big rain comes, our vegetable gardens we poured our hearts into is garden away in matter of minutes. My question is, how can we all work together to make sure that this stops or our persons with disabilities have better access to good fertile land?”
