[00:00:01] Madeline: Hello and welcome to SHE SOARS. Her Voice. Her Rights.

[00:00:05] Amal: We are CARE Canada’s Youth Champions, a group of young people across Canada who are passionate advocates for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).

[00:00:13] Lauren: We’re excited to discuss and raise awareness about young women’s rights and choices in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:00:20] Amal: Together, we will explore how these global issues connect to our lives as Canadian youth and discover ways in which we can all take action.

[00:00:27] Lauren: We will also talk about the SHE SOARS* project, which improves access to health and education, which are areas we want to see change in.

[00:00:34] Everyone: Join us!

[00:00:40] Amal: Welcome back everyone to another episode of SHE SOARS. So last episode we talked with the Chief of Party of the SHE SOARS project, Rebecca, about the intersection of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and climate change.

[00:00:52] Lauren: And we’re excited to continue the discussion on this topic today. We would like to start by acknowledging World Refugee Day as natural disasters and climate related crises are one of the leading causes of refugee movements worldwide.

[00:01:05] Lauren: A quick fact about this is that the international think-tank, the Institute for Economics and Peace predicts that 1.2 billion people could be displaced globally by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters. And Africa is one of the regions facing the highest ecological threats. So to tie this back to the SHE SOARS project briefly, the work that the SHE SOARS project in Uganda does mainly focuses on refugee host communities.

[00:01:29] Amal: So today we are lucky to be joined with Giulia Gasparri, who is a young professional and project officer in the operations and governance team at the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), the world’s largest alliance for the health and wellbeing of women, children and adolescents. She also serves as PMNCH’s focal point on climate change and its impact on women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, wellbeing and rights.

[00:01:55] Lauren: So Giulia, thanks so much for joining us today. We’re really excited to chat a bit more. So to start, could you please share a bit more about your background and work with PMNCH?

[00:02:04] Giulia: Hi Lauren. Hi Amal. My name is Giulia and it’s lovely to be with you here today in this podcast. I’m originally from Italy. I’m currently living in Geneva, Switzerland, where I work for PMNCH. The partnership brings together over 1,400 partners from 10 different constituency groups representing 192 countries around the world from governments, private sector businesses, healthcare professionals, adolescents and youth groups. We are an inclusive platform for advocacy and accountability for women, children and adolescent health and wellbeing.

[00:02:37] Giulia: Our vision is really that every woman, child and adolescent realizes their right to health and wellbeing, leaving no one behind. And we mobilize and amplify the voices of our partners to advocate together more strongly for the health and rights of women, children and adolescents. Our three main priorities are maternal, newborn and child health, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and adolescent wellbeing.

[00:02:59] Giulia: And within this obviously there’s strong linkages with climate change and the impact that climate change has on women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. So specifically, my role at PMNCH is to serve as a focal point on climate change where we do knowledge synthesis. So translating evidence for advocacy messages on this intersection.

[00:03:20] Giulia: We also look at campaigns and outreach and organize events, participate in global forums such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 26 and COP 27 wherever present and coordinating PMNCH’s advocacy there. A bit more about my background, I’m also part of the Youth Climate and Health Network which is a youth network working as well on the intersection between climate and health, which is hosted by the Global Climate and Health Alliance. And there we are really trying to create a platform for meaningful engagement between young people around this intersection.

[00:03:54] Amal: Thank you so much for sharing a bit about your background. Could you also please share a bit on how you became a youth advocate and young professional in the climate change and Sexual and Reproductive Health space?

[00:04:05] Giulia: Yes, thanks Amal. That’s a very interesting question. So, I think my passion for environmental challenges started when I was quite young. I was very interested specifically in the issues of plastic pollution and waste, which are very common in Italy. And I’ve always been also interested in social issues such as gender inequality, human rights, migration and refugees. So when I started my studies, I was really looking for a program that could allow me to combine my interests, both in terms of environmental sciences and also social justice more broadly. And so I studied international relations and sustainability and then went on to do a Master’s in Environmental Policy where I really honed in my expertise on climate and the environment. And it was actually at university where starting to study more in depth about the impacts of climate change and the lack of progress and lack of countries committing truly to reducing their carbon emissions and ensuring climate adaptation that I started to be very vocal and engaged in this field.

[00:05:09] Giulia: I think when we look at the fact that the progress which has been very inadequate in the past years since basically the Paris Agreement in 2015 and that we are currently on track for 2.8 degrees warming, as scientists say, by the end of the century, the future looks very scary and especially for young people like us where we know that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately borne by young people. And so I think this intergenerational injustice has really made me become vocal in the field but also want to focus my career in this intersection. And looking specifically at the impact that climate change has on the most affected populations including newborns, children, adolescents and young people. I think the other reason why I was inspired to become an advocate was thanks to all the amazing young people who are really pushing and advocating for climate justice around the world, from people who are more known in the world, like Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate, but also joining the UNFCCC youth constituency, YOUNGO, the children and youth constituency, and seeing all these young people in action and really the power that they put and the impact that they have on the ground, both at the local level but also at the international negotiation level, has really made me inspired to join the movement and contribute in a small way also to ensuring that we can have climate justice and intergenerational justice.

[00:06:40] Lauren: Thank you for that. That was really insightful and it was very kind of topical how you were talking about how young people are going to be the most affected by climate change. I mean, as we record this, most of Canada and the United States are covered in wildfire smoke right now, which to my knowledge has never happened this early in the season before but it’s definitely not regular weather behavior. So yeah, definitely a good point to raise there. Another question we had for you is if you faced any challenges as a young person conducting this work?

[00:07:09] Giulia: So I think young people face a lot of challenges as advocates and more generally when advocating for these issues where we are not really seeing as much progress as young people would want for our health and wellbeing and for our future and future generations as well. Recently PMNCH has coordinated some work on looking at how young people have been engaged in this space and providing evidence on how young people have really been pioneering a human rights-based approach to climate change, meaning that they have really pushed for climate justice and the right to participation, the right to transparency and information, the right to inclusion and non-discrimination, and the right to accountability.

[00:07:51] Giulia: Whilst looking at this, it became very clear that young people face a lot of challenges as advocates and when being engaged in these spaces. And I think these are some which I can very much relate to. And so, for example, young people are often undervalued by senior negotiators and policy makers. So senior negotiators tend to look down on young people and sort of exclude them from decision-making discussions. The participation of young people is certainly growing but often it’s in a tokenistic manner. So there’s a lot of tokenization in the field and calling young people on panels just in order to have a young person on the panel, but not necessarily meaningfully engaging them.

[00:08:33] Giulia: I think there’s also difficulties for young people trying to access these spaces in terms of their country delegations and having access to their politicians more generally and being actively engaged as young spokespeople. I think other challenges which young people often face as advocates, especially at the global level, are problems related to financing, so securing financing for their travels, for visas and visa restrictions. And especially for young people coming from low and middle income countries, this is a huge issue. I have never experienced this personally myself but I have a lot of friends and colleagues who often face these issues and you can really see, unfortunately, the discrimination around visa policies. And I’ve had friends sort of being accepted to participate in these international fora but then unfortunately not being able to attend in the end because they hadn’t been granted visas. So these are definitely things that need to change. I think in addition, there’s challenges in terms of access to information. A lot of the information on these topics is very technical. Children, adolescents especially, and young people don’t have access to this information because it’s produced in a very technical manner and it’s not really child or adolescent friendly.

[00:09:56] Giulia: So this is another challenge that I experienced specifically when I was in high school more than now. I remember trying to read these reports to understand more the science, and everything being very technical, especially because it was not in my school curricula. So I didn’t study this specifically at school. It was more out of personal interest. And I think finally the other challenge when accessing information is oftentimes you have to pay to access the information in journals. I think many students have faced this issue. I know I faced it when I was a student on the issue of having to pay to actually subscribe to journals where these articles are and to find the latest available evidence on the topics.

[00:10:38] Giulia: And so, yeah, this is a huge discrimination in terms of adolescents and young people. I think there is a growing recognition of the importance of meaningfully engaging adolescents and young people. PMNCH has done some work specifically on this and has been pioneering a global consensus statement on meaningful adolescent and youth engagement, really pinpointing what are the needs of adolescents and young people. And what is a checklist in terms of meaningfully engaging them? So what is needed to meaningfully engage young people? And this includes good practices of engagement, need for funding, providing capacity-building, providing equal opportunities, avoiding tokenism et cetera. So it’s very important that when young people are engaged, they are engaged in a meaningful way. Otherwise it risks being only tokenistic.

[00:11:30] Lauren: Yeah. Thank you for sharing those. I feel like I can relate to so many, if not all of those. I mean the tokenism one, I’ve definitely been on several youth councils where you’ve been given small projects that basically aren’t going to go anywhere just so that whoever’s leading it can like put the check mark that they’ve had youth involved. And yeah, it just feels like you’re being undervalued and no one’s taking you seriously. A few other challenges that came to mind for me when I was growing up in a rural, smaller town in east coast Canada was feeling disconnected to a global movement like not even knowing that higher level of global forum exists, but also not knowing where you can find that information or knowing that there’s other youth interested in these problems. So kind of feeling like you don’t know where to start and you’re a bit of an island. So I think everything that you mentioned about making it more accessible and capacity-building and all of these things would make a huge difference in getting youth involved, so thanks for sharing that.

[00:12:23] Amal: Yeah, definitely. I think I also had the same experience as I haven’t really been exposed until university started to see other youth that are actually interested in movements. And I really resonated with the comment you made about the global journals and how you would always run into paywalls and it’s very hard to access information, especially if you’re not linked to an institution. I think that barrier to information is a real challenge that many youth face. So we learned a bit in our last episode about how climate change makes existing inequalities worse and can negatively impact health outcomes for women and girls in particular. Can you dive a bit deeper into the relationship between climate change and women’s and children’s health based on the work you’ve been doing at PMNCH?

[00:13:08] Giulia: Thank you, Amal. We know that climate change is not gender neutral. So the impacts of climate change are disproportionately borne by women and girls. This is due to the fact that women and girls represent the majority of poor people around the world and they’re highly dependent on natural resources to support their livelihoods. So obviously the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on food security, agriculture and increase in economic instability has a disproportionate impact on women and girls. In addition, we know that women and girls are most likely to be displaced by climate change. They’re more likely to be killed during climate induced natural disasters. This is simply because women are not taught to learn survival skills often, such as swimming or climbing, in comparison to men. And so, for example, in the 2004 Asian tsunami women and girls represented 80 per cent of those who died during the tsunami because they didn’t have these survival skills.

[00:14:07] Giulia: We also know that during periods of droughts or flooding women and girls are most likely to be found stunted or skipping meals in order to adapt to climate shocks. And because they’re responsible for collecting water and food they have to travel longer distances to actually go and collect the water and food, and this makes them more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. In the case of extreme rising temperatures and climate disasters, there is a linkage with increase in gender-based violence and also early child marriage where girls are forced to go into early child marriage by their families in order to provide for their families due to the increased poverty linked to climate change. The other linkages are the destruction of extreme weather events to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights services. So during extreme weather events, there can be damages and facilities can be destroyed including disruption of medical supplies and facilities. And so during climate change there is a reduced access to contraception and safe abortion services.

[00:15:13] Giulia: There’s evidence, for example, during flooding in Bangladesh that this has led to low stocks of contraceptives in health facilities, specifically in rural and remote areas. And women were not able to access contraception because of the disruption due to climate change. Similarly, In the Philippines the typhoon in 2013 left a lot of pregnant women without access to antenatal care for more than a month. And so a lot of pregnant women were not able to access services and had to walk longer distances with obviously a lot of risks for their health and their baby’s health as well.

[00:15:51] Giulia: Climate disasters can be linked to gestational complications, pregnancy loss, and also impact a newborn, so low birth weight, stillbirth, and preterm birth. And higher temperatures are also linked to birth defects and neonatal mortalities. We know that women who are working in farming and agriculture sometimes are forced to continue working in order to provide for their families despite very high heat and high temperatures. And therefore this puts them at an additional risk of having negative health outcomes for themselves and their babies. So I think overall the impacts of climate change on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights are very profound.

[00:16:35] Giulia: At the same time, I think it would be important to highlight that unfortunately we are not actually seeing an integration in terms of women’s health and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in climate policies per se. So if we look at the nationally determined contributions to the UNFCCC we know that evidence from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) shows that there’s still a lack of integration of women’s health specifically in nationally determined contributions and in national adaptation plans. So, for example, out of an analysis done by UNFPA, only six countries essentially had referenced to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in their climate policies.

[00:17:18] Giulia: And the most common were in relation to maternal health and not the broader spectrum of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, so for example, completely excluding issues such as gender-based violence. At the same time when we look at specifically the intersection between youth SRHR and climate change, there’s even less. So in terms of youth-sensitive climate policies, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) finds that only 34 per cent of 103 countries’ nationally determined contributions are actually considered youth-sensitive. So they integrate fully youth in terms of their health and also meaningful participation and having disaster risk reduction, which are specifically targeted to children and young people. So when we look at SRHR in terms of climate policies we still don’t see an integration, which would be really needed to ensure that women and children and adolescents are really prioritized in climate policies because they are the most impacted population group.

[00:18:17] Lauren: Thank you so much for sharing those findings. That paints a really good picture about how intertwined they are. So one of our last questions is why do you think other youth should get involved in this movement and what advice do you have for listeners wanting to become an advocate to take action in their daily lives, and how can young people get started?

[00:18:34] Giulia: Thanks Lauren. I think that’s a very important question and I would like to give two main points on how young people can get involved in this space and really have an impact. So, at PMNCH we’re launching the 1.8 Young People for Change campaign which is a global youth-led campaign to mobilize more and better action for adolescent wellbeing, including youth Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and mental health in the context of conflict, climate change and the Covid-19 recovery.

[00:19:05] Giulia: The campaign aims to call for increased policies, financing and services, which are specifically targeted to young people. So I would like to invite everyone to join the 1.8 Young People campaign. And you can do so in different ways. The campaign will be the countdown to the Global Forum for Adolescents, which will be held on the 11th and 12th of October in 2023. The Global Forum for Adolescents will see partners from around 130 countries united together through both a two-day virtual main stage, but also national events in these 130 countries to hone in on the needs of young people in their countries and having a country specific context.

[00:19:47] Giulia: There’s different ways to get engaged and it’s all outlined on our website, the 1point8.org website. There are five key opportunities, which I’ll mention. First, supporting national governments to make commitments and really advocate at the country level with policymakers, with parliamentarians, with your national councils on asking your government to make commitments for adolescent wellbeing. Secondly, engage in the What Young People Want initiative. If you’re under 24 years old, we have launched a chatbot, which is live on the 1point8.org website where young people can really input on what you want for your wellbeing. And this will influence directly the agenda for action that will launch at the Global Forum for Adolescents.

[00:20:36] Giulia: So you will have a chance to really influence the agenda on the way forward. If you’re not under 24, then please do share the chat also with your networks. The third way to engage is to organize an event in your country to show support for the 1.8 campaign. They can be events at your local parliament, at your local council, but also in schools, in your community, in your streets. So, there’s really a wide range of possibilities. The other thing that we would involve you to do is to activate your social media channels to share about the campaign and the Global Forum for Adolescents. We have a social media toolkit on our website that can be shared. And then finally the last way to get engaged is we also have an art program as part of the Global Forum for Adolescents. So if you are an artist who is willing to be engaged and share your art on the wellbeing of adolescents and young people, that’s a great way to get involved as well.

[00:21:33] Giulia: A second suggestion for young people on how they can take action in terms of this intersection between climate and young people’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights is to join us in the Youth Climate and Health Network at the Global Climate and Health Alliance. There’s a lot of opportunities there. We’ve really just launched this platform. So it will be an opportunity for young people to really get engaged and exchange experiences, ideas and opportunities in this intersection. And Lauren, as you mentioned before, I think sometimes it’s difficult for young people to identify at the beginning especially, how do I engage in these global processes? Who can I connect with? And so I think that would be an amazing space to actually get involved and meet other young people who are already engaged in this space and share ideas, share best practices, and get engaged in a meaningful way and organize projects to influence both at the national level and global level specifically on this intersection between climate and health.

[00:22:32] Amal: Thank you for sharing. I think having a network is so helpful for young people to get connected and kickstart their advocacy journey, so I think having something like a network and also the forum is a great way for youth to get involved.

[00:22:46] Lauren: Yeah, thanks so much for sharing. Those are really tangible ways that people can get involved, so I appreciate having some next steps we can give people.

[00:22:53] Amal: Thank you, Giulia, for joining us and sharing your experiences being a climate change and SRHR youth advocate and some of the work PMNCH is doing in that area. We really encourage listeners to check out the 1.8 billion campaign and keep a look out for the upcoming Global Forum for Adolescents.

[00:23:11] Giulia: Thank you, Amal. Thank you, Lauren.

[00:23:14] Lauren: So we’re taking a summer break on this podcast to work on some exciting content for you for the second season of the podcast and youth events later this year. We’ll be back in September with season two of the SHE SOARS podcast, joined by other youth hosts from the project and special guests. So you can always let us know on social media if you have any particular questions or topics you’d like us to cover. And in the meantime, keep following us on social media @carecanada. Hope everyone has a great summer and thank you for listening!

[00:23:43] Amal: Thanks for listening to SHE SOARS. If you liked this episode, please share it on social media, connect with us in the comments or give us a like.

[00:23:50] Lauren: Make sure to catch our next episode by subscribing to our channel and following us wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:23:57] Madeline: Follow @carecanada on Instagram for updates on our show and the project.

[00:24:02] Lauren: SHE SOARS stands for Sexual and reproductive Health and Economic empowerment supporting Out-of-school Adolescent girls’ Rights and Skills in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia.

[00:24:12] Madeline: The project is funded by Global Affairs Canada. Check out our global partner organizations:

[00:24:17] Amal: Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Restless Development for even more project updates.

[00:24:26] Lauren: Thanks again for listening. Until next time!