As Zambia schools tackle climate change, a teenager spreads the word in sign language

KASAMA, Zambia (AP) — Every morning, Bridget Chanda places her prosthetic legs next to her bed, puts on her socks and pushes the remains of her limbs into the prosthetics as best she can. After six years, they no longer fit and it is painful to stand or walk for long periods of time, but it doesn’t bother her much.

“I still manage somehow,” she said. “I’m a girl on a mission.”

Chanda, 18, aims to help educate the deaf community in Zambia about of Climate Change. As the southern African nation has suffered from more frequent extreme weather, including its current severe droughtled the Zambian government to include more climate change education in its school curriculum.

But for this to be shared with the deaf community, it’s up to people like Chanda to help translate – and it’s a more difficult task because sign language doesn’t include many weather-related terms.

She is a student at Chileshe Chepela Special School in Kasama, northern Zambia, where many students are deaf or hard of hearing. After Chanda enrolled there in 2022, learning sign language was a way to adapt and relate to these schoolmates, even though she herself is not deaf. Around the same time, climate change was becoming a more topical issue in the country, and Chanda – who finds it intriguing that his southern hometown near Lusaka has been devastated by drought while Kasama looks to a bountiful harvest – I wanted to talk about this.

“Climate change affects our way of life,” she said.

The country has suffered from severe food shortages as water has become scarce, which has led to the president will declare national emergency in February.

Chanda served as an interpreter while climate agriculture expert Elizabeth Motale visits communities and schools to educate people about climate change. On a visit to a garden outside Chanda’s school, she signed as Motale showed students how drip irrigation gets precious water exactly where plants need it. The students smiled and laughed as they punctured a plastic bottle to drip water onto the plant roots.

Chanda even taught Motale some sign language to use when there is no interpreter available.

“Bridget has been a huge blessing to me,” Motale said.

Sign language is not recognized as an official language in Zambia, but the government has taken steps to ensure its recognition and has made it mandatory for climate change education to also be taught in sign language. But with language delays, it can be challenging to teach new concepts.

Chanda remembers struggling to find words to explain mulching, for example – adding organic material to the soil to help retain moisture – or climate adaptation, the ways people can adjust to more extreme weather conditions. .

“Sometimes it’s difficult,” Chanda said. “Sometimes I have to spell with my fingers and when I miss a letter or two it makes it difficult for some students who are deaf.”

The Campaign for Women’s Education (CAMFED), a pan-African movement that promotes girls’ education, launched a new climate education program in schools in March, led by young female graduates. The program, in partnership with the ministries of education in Zambia and Zimbabwe, aims to help young people — especially marginalized girls — build climate resilience and explore green careers.

Part of the climate education that CAMFED wants to promote is practical. It runs an agricultural mentoring program that aims to promote climate-smart techniques, such as drip irrigation, which uses less water, and teaches entrepreneurship skills that can help young women launch agricultural businesses that use these skills.

Helena Chandwe, business manager at CAMFED, said it is important to improve the way information is delivered to students with special needs, and that means interpreters who can deliver it correctly and with enough context.

Chanda hopes to join the farm guide program after finishing her studies.

His lower legs were amputated after he developed gangrene at age 7. Stigmatized and bullied at school in Lusaka, she ended up at Chileshe, where she found a much more welcoming environment in a place that mixes students with special needs with regular students.

Her prosthetic limbs do not prevent her from transporting a friend, Juliet Nankamba, in Juliet’s wheelchair. The two often sit side by side in class, sharing books and participating in classroom discussions and assignments. Asked about her friendship with Bridget, Juliet smiles, laughs and gives a peace sign.

Chanda fights back tears as she describes how CAMFED helped with her tuition and boarding fees. She was appointed head girl at the start of the year and said she dreams of one day becoming an orthopedic surgeon, going far away from Zambia to make her mother proud.

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