Spoken Word Artists Speak Up Against Climate Change

Students from around the world have come to share their stories at the UN climate change talks. Four students won the Spoken Word 4 The World Competition, a spoken word art competition. They went to COP21 in Paris to share their stories of how their communities had been impacted by climate change.  I had the privilege of sitting down with Isabella Avila Borgeson and Terisa Tinei Siagatonu, two of the competition winners whose Pacific Island communities have already been  affected my Climate Change. 

They each share their stories and recite their poems for me. They work off of each other, and right as one says something heartfelt and powerful, the other one is the first one to respond with a comforting "yeah sis" or a deep "umhmmm." They are not actually sisters but they share an experience- both their communities have been effected my changing weather patterns. 

Here is the segment Isabella has written under her Youtube video to describe her story. 

On November 8, 2013, super typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) hit my mother's hometown of Tanauan, Leyte in the Philippines. 

I moved back to Tanauan one month after the typhoon to help my mother rebuild our home, and stayed for the next 2 years working as a community organizer on relief/rehabilitation projects throughout Region VIII. 

Learning about my family's stories of death and trauma surrounding the Ocean was a vivid part of my experience. In my community/family/motherland, climate change means re-learning the Ocean. I was always taught that the sea is a sacred place, where I come to speak to my ancestors and find healing in salt waters. With the increased intensity and frequency of natural disasters hitting island countries like the Philippines as a direct result of global warming, my family's relationship to the sea is changing. 

The ocean is now a mass grave of family members and townsfolk whose bodies were washed away by storm surge waves during the super typhoon.

This piece, titled "Yolanda Winds" is dedicated to my mother, a survivor of the super typhoon, who struggles to forgive the sea. A reminder that we are a people of the sea. And for some of our families, sharing our stories about climate change, typhoon seasons, and rising oceans - is an act of resistance, necessary for our survival. 

Other Spoken Word Artists have made a splash in previous Climate Change Conferences. Here is Kathy Jetnil-Kijner from the Marshall Islands. At the end of the segment, she recites her poem which she has written for her daughter to talk about what the future of climate change means to her community.