Transcript for Field Lessons

Audio description: A brown goat eats green plants, its head down, body angled towards the ground.

Steven Bukaya, a Ugandan man in a yellow shirt, sits on the ground, chopping a banana trunk with a large knife.

Bukaya: I’m Bukaya, Steven. I’m age 57 years.

Audio description: Steven looks off-camera and smiles. Cows are visible in the background.

Bukaya: I’m a farmer.

Audio description: He sits on the ground next to piles of sweet potatoes and a bag of plants.

Bukaya: Most especially in the cattle rearing and piggery.

Audio description: Steven sits on the ground petting a brown-and-white cow eating a banana trunk. In the next shot, Bukaya is revealed to have a limb difference affecting his legs. He crawls on the ground, protecting his hands with salmon-colored sandals.

Bukaya: When you’re a person with disability and rear animals, your home becomes a school to other people. They always refer to you that if a disabled person can raise animals, how about we?

Audio description: Text overlay: Work has become harder for Bukaya as worsening droughts during Uganda’s dry seasons have driven up the cost of essentials like animal feed, water, and transportation.

Bukaya: Climate change is affecting me so much because when the climate is very hot like it is now, the feeds are very expensive, most especially when it comes to to a maize brand. There is a type of grass which they eat, and it accelerates the milk.

Audio description: A white sack is tied with string with some banana trunk sticking out.  Bukaya milks a cow, filling a pink bucket with milk.

Bukaya: But during the dry season, that type of grass is nowhere to be seen.

Audio description: Cows stand in a wooden enclosure. Text on screen: To feed the animals, Bukaya and his family often forage for plants or stretch their feed supply by diluting it with water.

Stephen works on his hands and knees, picking up green plants from a pile of wooden planks.

Bukaya: We don’t get enough food like grass and other things. We supplement the feeds with it. With water.

Audio description: A woman pulls animal feed and then water into a trough.

Bukaya: During the dry season, the bill for the tap to water it goes up. Yes.

Audio description: A white pig eats from a trough.

Bukaya: So these days they don’t eat to the maximum. They eat only to survive.

Audio description: A woman chops a banana trunk with a knife next to a small child. Text overlay: Facing lower returns on milk and increasing prices, maintaining his cattle and family has become a challenge for Bukaya.

Bukaya: We have been yearning for the government to help us. But to the way they bring in their programs, they are not disability-friendly. When we are in this type of business, we face a lot of challenges.

Audio description: Text overlay: Bukaya hopes to modernize his farm by acquiring hybrid animals, which are more resilient to climate change, and by having more accessible transport to the market.

Stephen sits on the ground, holding a plant in his hands.

Bukaya: We are using this bicycle, the local bicycles.

Audio description: A man pushes a bicycle laden with banana trunks.

Bukaya: but my vision is to make this thing more, more commercial than it is. I need a motorized transport, like a piki.

Audio description: Bukaya gestures as a small fleet of motorized scooters gathers behind him.

Bukaya: That’s what I’m heading for. But it’s a bit expensive.

Audio description: Bukaya slips his sandals over his hands to begin crawling toward the camera. Text overlay: Without disability-inclusive government programs and sufficient funding, Bukaya and other Ugandans with disabilities face the greatest risks from the impacts of climate change.

Text overlay: While Uganda has made strides in enacting laws like the Persons for Disability Act in 2020, more must be done to ensure their inclusion in future climate change adaptation and action plans.

The Disability Justice Project logo, featuring a bright yellow letter D with a triangular play button in the center, appears on a black background.