NEHA SAIGAL
The CoP 26 UN Climate Change conference is underway, some of us wait with bated breath, as this could be the moment we start over and some have given up on the system that has perpetuated the problem. I am not sure where I stand but I do wonder what all of this brouhaha would mean for people, communities and leaders on the frontline. For example, what does climate change and air pollution, which are different sides of the same coin,look like for an ASHA worker working in rural India?
For those unaware ASHAs are trained women community health workers who are at the frontline of the Government’s health system in the country and connect marginalized communities to the healthcare system. Personally, I have no words to appreciate their leadership and the very challenging job they do on a day-to-day basis despite inadequate financial support and social protection.
I was at a meeting hosted by a representative of the Warrior Mom network, which is an upcoming mothers collective fighting for clean air and climate justice across India, in Jharkhand. There were close to 30 ASHA workers across 20 Gram Panchayats, who participated in this meeting. I was a little hesitant when I glanced around the room,as in my previous work I have interacted with ASHAs, who support women during childbirth, immunization of children, managing illnesses in the community with basic first aid and many such responsibilities. So, I was unsure how the conversation would go down and whether I was wasting their time and keeping them away from their other critical responsibilities.
But I was surprised and pleasantly so! The reason possibly is that we don’t take the time to understand perceptions and challenges of air pollution and the climate crisis from people who are at the frontlines and most impacted.
Each of the 30 ASHA workers had something to share, they spoke about sources of air pollution in the vicinity of their villages which ranged from stone crushing mills, bauxite mining, waste dumping and burning and the rampant use of biomass burning for household fuel. They experienced the changing climate with the decrease in forest cover and the unusual changes in weather impacting the agricultural produce and thereby the food security and nutrition.
In their time as ASHAs, they have seen an increase in mothers giving birth to premature babies and those born with low birth weight. They were very clear that this made their jobs more challenging, and they had every reason to be concerned about these issues and what action was being taken by the Government to tackle it.
One of the Sahiyas (the name given to ASHAs in Jharkhand), very vividly explained her village’s struggle in being a dump yard for waste for the remaining Lohardaga district. I could see the anger and worry in her expressions as she explained their desperate attempts to raise this with the authorities and it was frustrating as it had become a site for toxins being released into the air and increased infectious diseases.
Post, meeting with the Sahiyas on my way back to Ranchi, I wondered about the immense role the ASHAs will play in our fight to manage the climate crisis and air pollution, given climate change will define health narratives especially for women and children. The recently released report, “The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future”, further builds evidence on this front.
The scientifically robust report, looks at 44 indicators to suggest that there will be an increase in health impacts related to climate change and an increase in health inequities, making communities that are socially disadvantaged more vulnerable. The report has many findings that should worry us especially in the context of increased financial and economic burden given the adverse impacts on health and the access to health care. But one of the findings that stood out, also because I was able to recall the concerns raised by the Sahiyas in Jharkhand, was the huge dependence on solid biofuels in countries that were in the low HDI group.
The limited access to clean fuel, ventilation practices and infiltration of air has implications on the levels of household air pollutants which is a matter of concern, as it has resulted in 2.31 million deaths per year globally. The impacts are gendered with 40% more women compared to men, exposed to household air pollution.
The Sahiyas recognised that there is a cultural norm around using solid biofuels especially for cooking, but they were defiant that it shouldn’t come at the cost of the health of their women and children, especially in the context where Jharkhand is the third largest indoor emitter, according to a 2020 WRI research. They also believed that awareness resulting in behaviour change and a basket of clean fuel alternatives to the poor would be a step in the right direction.
It seems obvious at this stage to involve ASHAs, not just in Jharkhand but across the country in the fight against the climate crisis and with each breath getting more toxic. Even the Lancet report suggests that gender-sensitive responses to the health dimensions of climate change are the need of the hour, what could be better than incentivising our trained women health force economically, socially and politically to build leadership on these issues. And this would mean going beyond ground level work and hearing their voices in decision making spaces around climate change.
