Voice of Change: Championing Engagement of Persons with Disabilities

Climate resilience work is only as strong as who it includes. Julia Yegon's story began with her own experience as a person with a disability, within the Endorois pastoralist community, and grew into a tree-planting effort that speaks directly to a challenge many households already feel: drought and wind stripping the land bare, and damaging the very roofs over their heads.

Trees anchor soil, break wind, and - planted with intention - protect homes as much as they protect farmland. Julia's account makes the case that persons with disabilities are not bystanders to environmental conservation but leaders in it, bringing lived insight into what a community actually needs protected and why. Her journey is a direct, personal answer to a rights-based approach to climate action: no resilience strategy is complete if it leaves anyone out.

This story is one of seven told by community champions themselves, part of Voices for Change - a partnership between the CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience (ClimBeR) and CEMIRIDE exploring how indigenous knowledge and rights-based approaches are already building climate resilience across Kenya's minority and indigenous communities.