Rising Tides, Raising Voices
Facing rising sea levels and ecological destruction, Indigenous Pacific Islanders with disabilities race against time to ensure that when the next disaster strikes, no one is left behind.
Synopsis
The Pacific region is among the most impacted in the world by climate change. Among its low-lying islands, there is no escape from rising coastal waters and extreme weather events. As part of a legacy of systemic oppression, Indigenous Pacific Islanders with disabilities are particularly at risk.
During disasters, the structural barriers that Pacific Islanders with disabilities face every day – like the lack of accessible information and transportation – can become a death sentence. Battling a surge of catastrophic cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, disabled grassroots activists across the Pacific are championing disability-inclusive climate action. It’s a fight not just against nature, but against a world that often overlooks people with disabilities.
Stories Filmed In A Different Way
The Disability Justice Project (DJP) trained Indigenous activists with disabilities from the Pacific on the iPhone camera to capture footage. With VoiceOver, the iPhone provides image descriptions for blind and low-vision filmmakers and feedback on whether a subject is in focus. “If you think about it, it doesn’t make sense for a blind person to use a camera,” says DJP filmmaker Ari Hazelman. “The iPhone gives you more avenues to tell your story in a more profound way as a blind person.”
Watch this video with audio descriptions, captions, and SLI>>>
Team Spotlight
Jody Santos / Director
Santos is the DJP’s founding executive director and a human rights filmmaker. She has traveled to some 30 countries across five continents, documenting everything from the trafficking of girls in Nepal to the widespread and often abusive practice of institutionalizing children with disabilities in the U.S. and other countries. She first became involved in disability justice after her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three and she began to navigate the various systems – educational, medical, etc. – that seemed to exclude, if not actively work against, persons with disabilities.
Ari Hazelman / Producer · Videographer
Hazelman is a blind 34-year-old Samoan man who works as the disability inclusive officer at the Samoa Blind Persons Association (SBPA), the only association in Samoa that supports blind and visually impaired people. Hazelman is also a member of Samoa’s disability reference team on disaster risk reduction.
Sa Utailesolo / Producer · Videographer
Utailesolo is a 40-year-old man with low vision who grew up in the villages of Lepea and Lalomanu in Samoa. He has been working at the National Advocacy Organisation of Persons with Disabilities, Nuanua O Le Alofa, as a finance and administration coordinator for 15 years. He has also worked as a Braille translator. Passionate about disability rights advocacy, Utailesolo has a training of trainers certificate for raising awareness on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Faaolo Utumapu-Utailesolo / Producer
Utumapu-Utailesolo is the program officer for the Pacific Island Countries for the Disability Rights Fund. She works closely with the program team and serves as a liaison between the funds and grantees in the Pacific Island Countries. Utumapu-Utailesolo is an experienced disability rights advocate in the Pacific region and in her home country of Samoa. She is one of the founders of the disability rights movement in Samoa, having co-founded Nuanua o le Alofa in 2001.
Melvina Voua / Producer · Videographer
Voua is involved in many volunteer activities with youth groups, women’s groups, and people with disabilities in her community. A woman with a physical disability, she is a member of People with Disability Solomon Islands (PWDSI), the umbrella body of organizations for people with disabilities in the Solomon Islands. From 2020 to 2022, Voua was employed by PWDSI as a part-time climate change officer, researching the impacts of climate change on people with disabilities in the Solomon Islands. She continues to advocate for disability inclusion in humanitarian projects related to disaster readiness and climate adaptation and mitigation.
Impact
In May 2024, a 15-minute version of our documentary was screened by Nuanua O Le Alofa (NOLA), a disability advocacy organization in Samoa, during a workshop on inclusive disaster responses in the remote South Pacific territory of Tokelau. Mataafa Faatino Utumapu, NOLA’s general manager, said that even though the climate crisis disproportionally impacts people with disabilities, “They are still largely marginalized in climate debates and action.” She extended her organization’s appreciation to the Disability Justice Project for allowing NOLA to share the “success, challenges and contributions of Pacific organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) in the areas of disaster and climate change through the documentary.”
In October 2024, this version also screened at the People’s Forum, an annual event organized by the Commonwealth Foundation. This year’s forum, held in Samoa, centered on the challenges and opportunities in achieving people-centered governance across the Commonwealth, addressing pressing issues like climate justice, health equity, and freedom of expression. The film was featured in a panel discussion titled “Double Whammy and the Climate Crisis,” hosted by the Commonwealth Disabled People’s Forum.
In December 2024, the 15-minute film was screened in both Paris and Rome in recognition of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. In Paris, the film was part of UNESCO’s inaugural Festival of Short Films on Disability Inclusion. In Rome, Rising Tides, Raising Voices producer/director Jody Santos joined a panel discussion and screening hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) to discuss the themes and insights from the film.
In December 2024, the 15-minute film was also screened at Pacific Climate Mobility Regional Workshop in Nadi, Fiji.
Film Funders & Partners
This documentary is endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development as a Decade Activity. Use of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development logo by a non-UN entity does not imply the endorsement of the United Nations of such entity, its products or services, or of its planned activities. More information>>>