Transcript for Rising Tides, Raising Voices

[waves crashing against the shore] 

Audio Description: A swell of blue-green waves crashes against the shore. A storm shakes palm trees with dark skies. 

[wind whistling through the trees] 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “Pacific Island nations contribute only 0.03 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions but are among the hardest hit by climate change. 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “These low-lying islands have no escape from rising coastal waters and extreme weather events. Freshwater exists in precarious balance with the encroaching sea.” 

[tearing, rustling, and banging] 

Audio Description: A young ni-Vanuatu man uses a knife to repair a thatched roof destroyed by a recent storm. 

Nelly Caleb: Nowadays, we have 7 to 8 disaster strikes every month in Vanuatu in different areas. 

Audio Description: Nelly Caleb, a ni-Vanuatu woman with low vision, sits outside and speaks to camera. She is wearing sunglasses and a short-sleeved dress. Caleb is the national coordinator of the Vanuatu Disability Promotion and Advocacy Association. A billboard shows a tsunami evacuation plan, and a chain-link fence holds back an eroding coastline. 

Nelly Caleb: We have more and more cyclones coming, and even the weather patterns, it’s not like before. In these days, there’s very, very heavy rains and we could see the sea level rise. Now it’s chasing the people who live near the coastlines, they are moving further up. 

Audio Description: Two boys play in floodwater in Vanuatu. Herbert Bell, a blind Samoan man with a goatee, speaks to camera. He is the disaster risk reduction officer for the National Advocacy Organization for Persons with Disabilities of Samoa. 

Herbert Bell: Some villages are sinking slowly. We’ve seen a change in climate. 

 Audio Description: A young boy from the Solomon Islands with a physical disability pumps water from a spigot. 

[running water] 

Audio Description: Melvina Voua, a young woman from the Solomon Islands, speaks to camera. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and she is wearing a pink shirt and shell around her neck. Voua is a member of and the former climate change officer for People with Disability Solomon Islands. 

Melvina Voua: For some islands, the wells are like salty because they are no longer fresh because the sea level rise. 

Audio Description: The young boy from the well carries a pan to fetch clean water. He has a limb difference and is limping. He dips his pan into a deep well underground. 

Melvina Voua: If they want to get clean water, they have to go far, for the streams. And for persons with disabilities, it’s so difficult going a long distance, and it’s not accessible. A few people, when they get sick, they boil the water. But because it’s a lot of hard work, they cannot boil water every day. 

 [ominous, echoey synth music] 

Audio Description: Children play in the ocean in the distance. Text on screen says, “Much of the Pacific’s small island states are the traditional lands of Indigenous peoples.” 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “As part of a legacy of systemic oppression, these communities experience inordinately high rates of poverty and disability, increasing their susceptibility to the effects of climate change.” 

Audio Description: Mare Rodin, a Fijian woman in a wheelchair, heads to her office. She has an Afro and is wearing a pink sweater and red pants. Later, a man pushes her on a path to her home in the informal settlement where she lives. 

Mere Roden: For persons with disabilities, there’s a warning for a tsunami, but where do we go to? Who would take us? 

Audio Description: Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo, a blind Samoan woman, uses a cane to guide her outside. She is wearing a purple and pink dress and a pink cape. She has a yellow flower in her hair. Utumapu-Utailesolo is the program officer for Pacific Island Countries for the Disability Rights Fund. 

Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo: Me being blind, I don’t know if a cyclone is happening. If I run outside, is there going to be a flying object flying directly at me and I can’t see it? 

Audio Description: Mare Rodin hangs laundry on the porch outside her home in the Veidogo informal settlement in Suva, Fiji. A young girl helps her. 

Mere Roden: A tsunami warning. I remember the second time it happened, when I moved into this settlement. 

Audio Description: Mare Rodin sits in her office and speaks to camera. She is the office manager for Spinal Injury Association of Fiji. This is followed by a collage animation sequence of Rodin in her home and then going outside to be warned by a neighbor of the impending tsunami. Young Fijian boys wearing rugby clothes run to save her. The animation used throughout the video incorporates newspaper strips into a 1970s-style visual narrative. 

Mere Roden: It was dark. It was in the evening. And I remember it was just myself and my husband had just gone out to a friend’s place. And then we were asked to leave right there and then, you know? You need to get to higher ground. There were these boys who were part of the rugby club from the settlement. Then, somehow 2, 3 boys, they came running and they wanted to help me out. They knew that my husband had gone out, they said, “We’ll take you. Don’t worry.” They call me Auntie Mammy in the settlement. They said, “Auntie Mammy, we’ll take you. Don’t worry, just come. We’ll take your chair out, and this one is going to carry you.” And you know, they were just sorting things out. And then I said, ‘See, if it’s hard to take me, you guys go. You run for your lives. You guys are much younger, you still have a long way to get to go. Don’t worry about me. You leave me behind.’

Audio Description: Collage animated sequence showing the Pacific Islands hit by natural disasters. Houses are underwater and buried by landslides. The title of the film comes on screen: “Rising Tides, Raising Voices.” 

[people talking] 

Audio Description: The office of the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation. Jay Nasilasila stands outside, leaning on a metal crutch and talking with a man in a wheelchair. 

Jay Nasilasila: When I go out to the community, I tend to hear the reality of what persons with disabilities are going through. 

Audio Description: Nasilasila is in the office, making phone calls, and wearing a blue T-shirt that says on the back, “Disability Inclusion in Climate and DRR Policies and Actions.”   

Jay Nasilasila: They are facing changing weather patterns. 

Audio Description: Nasilasila, the coordinator for the disaster risk reduction unit at Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation, sits next to a conference table and speaks to camera. 

Jay Nasilasila: The planting of vegetables, the seasonings of fruits from trees tend to change. 

Audio Description: Mare Rodin maneuvers her wheelchair to drink water from her sink. 

Jay Nasilasila: And the access to water. 

[clap of thunder followed by rain] 

Audio Description: Dark skies loom over the sea in Fiji with mountains in the background. 

 [waves lapping against the shore] 

Audio Description: Water laps against the shore and a coconut is washed up on the beach. 

Jay Nasilasila (cont…): And those that live in the poorer remote areas, or on the coastal, we’ve noticed coastal erosion happening, 

Audio Description: Scenes from a flooded informal settlement in Fiji. 

Jay Nasilasila:  An increase in sea level that has also affected their livelihoods. 

Audio Description: Kaltaktak Kalokis, an older ni-Vanuatu man with graying hair, works in his garden. He is the elder chairman of the Erakor Village. 

Jay Nasilasila: The backyard gardening that they tend to plant are being disrupted by the waves coming in, and it’s not growing as it used to be before. 

Audio Description: Kalokis grabs cassava from his shed and walks toward the camera to speak. 

Kaltatak Kalokis: Like this one we call cassava. And back in 1960 to ‘70s, ’80s, that’s our crop. And this one took about two and a half years to reach that size. But back in the ‘60s in 8 to 8 months to 16 months for a crop to reach that size. So, you see the big difference from 8 to 16 months and two and a half years. 

[trickling water sounds] 

Audio Description: Kalokis uses a watering can to water his garden. Melvina Voua from People with Disability Solomon Islands speaks to camera. 

Melvina Voua: For the rising temperature, I think it’s becoming more challenging nowadays. It can get your skin burning and especially for the disabilities who we cannot move fast. 

Audio Description: Kalokis pushes a woman in a wheelchair down the path to his home. He talks with her and the other women in the group. 

Melvina Voua: Because most people they depend on gardening for their food and survival, so they cannot walk for a long time in the garden because of the temperature 

[melancholic synth music with strings] 

Audio Description: A van pulls up outside the Vanuatu Society of People with Disability. 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “Governments are obligated under international law to uphold the rights of persons with disabilities in their climate responses, as affirmed by the Paris Agreement’s preamble. Yet according to a 2022 study, out of the then 192 parties to the agreement, only 35 mention people with disabilities in their climate pledges.” At the bottom of the screen is the source: a 2022 study by the Disability Inclusive Climate Action Research Program at McGill University and the International Disability Alliance (IDA). 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “Pacific activists are demanding a seat at the table in shaping climate change and disaster policies, urging governments to ensure accessible evacuation centers and inclusive early warning systems.” 

Audio Description: Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo from the Disability Rights Fund speaks to camera. 

Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo: One Deaf person was sharing about how he saw a lot of his family members started to run inland. He has no idea what’s happening because he couldn’t hear the the early warning signs. 

Audio Description: Nelly Caleb from the Vanuatu Disability Promotion and Advocacy Association speaks to camera. 

Nelly Caleb: Vanuatu doesn’t have any national sign language. At the moment, they are developing one, but people who are Deaf cannot, you know, access, education system because we do not have any national sign language. 

Audio Description: Collage animated sequence depicting Caleb’s story about a Deaf woman at home making dinner as an NGO staff member knocks on her door in the pouring rain to warn her about the impending landslide. Ni-Vanuatu women run away as the land crashes down behind them. The landslide buries the Deaf woman’s home and the surrounding village. Smoke billows from the scene as the rain continues to fall. 

Nelly Caleb: When we had these landslides in 2015, in the southern part, where a woman, she’s Deaf. She had six children, and she’s pregnant at the same time. One of the NGO staff they went up there to warn the community: “You need to move out because a landslide might come.” But all the women are scared, and they run away. They didn’t serve the information to the woman who is Deaf. Two days after, the landslide fell and she’s gone with the babies, with the children. 

[people talking] 

Audio Description: The sun glints off wheelchairs lined up outside the Vanuatu Society of People with Disability. Utumapu-Utailesolo speaks to camera. 

Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo: People with disabilities do not have the support that they need during a disaster. Especially if the evacuation centers are not accessible. 

Audio Description: At an evacuation center in Vanuatu, there is no wheelchair ramp – just cinder block stairs to the entrance. 

Audio Description: Evelyn Ukai James, a ni-Vanuatu woman using a wheelchair, speaks to camera. Her graying hair is pulled back, and she is wearing a purple dress and a white scarf. She is the livelihood trainer for women and girls with disabilities at the Vanuatu Society of People with Disability. 

Evelyn Ukai James: Most evacuation centers, if I come to this building and the door is little and my wheelchair is too big, that’s it. I just have to stay outside, or I have to go down and crawl, and this is not what we want it to look. Very bad. But people are watching us crawling in. 

 Audio Description: Nelly Caleb and Kaltaktak Kalokis from Vanuatu push Freda Willie in her wheelchair. Willie is wearing a pink sweatshirt, and her short, dark hair is pulled back in an orange bandana. Willie is the disability inclusive officer at the Vanuatu Disability Promotion and Advocacy Association under the Australian Humanitarian Program. She speaks to camera. 

Freda Willie: Like Cyclone Pam in 2015, I had to move from my home to an evacuation center. When I called, they said, “Oh, you can’t come here because you’re a wheelchair user. Our toilet and bathroom is upstairs.” 

[chirping birds] 

Audio Description: Unaisi Bakewa walks across the bridge in the informal settlement of Tavua, Fiji. She is her village’s disability focal point for the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation. She sits on a branch with a river behind her, speaking to camera. She has short dark hair and is wearing a purple shirt with the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation’s logo. 

 Unaisi Bakewa: There has been the recent floodings in the past few years due to the climate change. And you can see that the river is getting wider now. For people with disabilities, they don’t want to go to the evacuation center there because they tend to see that it’s not disability friendly. 

Audio Description: An animated sequence of a man and woman in Tavua stacking mattresses inside their home as the water rises outside. The man uses a wheelchair, and he pulls it on top of the mattresses after climbing up. The woman sits on the mattresses with her arms wrapped around her knees. Eventually, the water recedes, and the man and woman climb down. Outside, Tavua is flooded. 

[somber piano music] 

Unaisi Bakewa: So what some of them tend to see they just double the beds, they double the beds and sit on top. If they don’t want to go to their friend’s house or relative’s house, they’ll just stay there. They’ll just sit on top of the bed until the water goes out so, and then they can come down again. It literally puts them at risk, yeah? Because some of them you know, because of the diseases that commence now, in the leptospirosis, because whenever there’s a flood, their house is underwater. 

Audio Description: Text on screen says, “In the Pacific, disabled activists are at the forefront of climate justice action, developing inclusive solutions to address the climate crisis.” 

[whirring, clicking printer sounds] 

Audio Description: A sign on a wall says, “Samoa Blind Persons Association.” A woman from behind looks at the printer as it prints Braille documents. She takes the documents and inspects them. Herbert Bell from the National Advocacy Organization for Persons with disabilities of Samoa speaks to camera. 

Herbert Bell: You remember that saying, “Knowledge is power”? For us people who are blind, if we do not get the information, that means we don’t understand the affairs of the world. And we tend to get left behind from our society. 

Audio Description: A woman binds the Braille document. She looks at files on her computer and chats with a colleague at her desk. She presses the start button on the printer as her colleague reads aloud from a Braille document. 

Herbert Bell: Recently, we’ve launched the Disaster Risk Management booklet from the Disaster Management Office, which is now translated into Braille so that the blind community will be aware of how to respond when an earthquake occurs or maybe a cyclone so that we do not rely on our families to tell us what to do. We are able for ourselves to to read and to learn on how to cope with, with disasters and mitigate the risk of climate change. 

Audio Description: Jay Nasilasila from the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation speaks to camera. 

Jay Nasilasila: When disasters is approaching the country, we activate our emergency operations center, 

Audio Description: A whiteboard inside the office of the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation has the words “disability inclusive awareness training” written on it. Nasilasila is typing on a computer. 

Jay Nasilasila:  Disability sector, emergency operations center in this very room where we start to coordinate with our 16 branches, and start to communicate on the severity of the different situation reports. 

Audio Description: Nelly Caleb from the Vanuatu Disability Promotion and Advocacy Association speaks to camera. 

Nelly Caleb: We are part of the working committee for the sign language and, um, different organizations that are a part of the working group. We were tasked to look at the different actions, how you sign maybe a cyclone coming. 

Audio Description: Vanuatu scenery passes from a car. Caleb rides in the backseat, looking out the window. 

Nelly Caleb: So now, the Education Department is putting the sign language together. Not only coming out from the Education Department, but it’s coming out from all our members in Vanuatu. 

Audio Description: Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo from the Disability Rights Fund sits in the back of a moving van at dusk. She looks contemplative. Later, she speaks to camera. 

[hopeful violin and piano] 

Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo: People with disabilities should be involved in the design, implementation, and also monitoring of disaster risk management. 

Audio Description: A truck speeds by with a group of young ni-Vanuatu men in the back. A van is parked outside the Vanuatu Society of People with Disability. Staff inside work on computers. A young woman and a boy help Caleb take Freda Willie’s wheelchair out of a parked van and unfold it. 

Nelly Caleb: But we have to be resilient. We had our training just last month with all organizations of persons with disabilities who are in six provinces across Vanuatu, and we told them we need to have a plan, an escape plan. We need to make sure that people with disabilities are evacuated before a cyclone or a disaster strikes. 

Audio Description: Nasilasila speaks to camera.  

Jay Nasilasila: When we talk about resilient people, we are already resilient. 

Audio Description: A boy with a physical disability in the Solomon Islands carries water in a plastic bottle. Willie and Evelyn Ukai James sit at a table and chat at the Vanuatu Society of People with Disability. 

Jay Nasilasila: We’ve been living through this climate in the past for almost how many decades ago and we’re still here. So that is a true definition of resilience for persons with disabilities…  

Audio Description: Utumapu-Utailesolo is helped out of the van by a young Fijian man and walks into a building. 

Jay Nasilasila: specifically that they’re able to live through this. 

Audio Description: Collage animation to illustrate the story told by Mare Rodin of the Spinal Injury Association of Fiji about her neighbors building a footpath for her. The animation zooms in on colorful houses, and then an older Fijian man stands up at a meeting, gesturing emphatically. The scene cuts to Rodin in her wheelchair outside in the rain as her husband reaches for her. Later, men carry bags of cement while other people help spread it. A woman offers food on a tray. 

Mere Roden: I’m fortunate because where I live for the past 25 years, there was no footpath. Six years ago, there was a meeting that was held, and there was this old man who was living temporarily with his family there. He suggested that they work on a footpath. And the reason being was this, he said, “I noticed a woman living down inside of the settlement, being carried, rain or shine. She’s carried on the husband’s back, or someone else’s back, and her chair would be taken up by somebody to wait from the roadside. And, I just think that we should work on a footpath that, you know, she may be taken in a more digniful way up to the roadside to board her vehicle or the transport at the roadside. There were those who contributed a bag of cement, and there were those who would cook and provide lunch for the boys who were working on them. 

Audio Description: A girl assists Rodin by pushing her wheelchair. Rodin kisses a little boy’s forehead as he greets her while other children watch. Later, a man pushes Rodin up a wooden ramp into her home. 

Mere Roden: But when I get off the taxi, there are children as little as, who haven’t even gone to kindi, who would run up and say, want to pick my bag. And I’m always thinking, Lord, that this God is watching me and protecting me, and he’s got his hands everywhere. And even if I’m coming late in the evening, I know that there’s always someone who’s going to be there. 

Fade to black. 

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