An international refugee expert has urged policymakers in Connecticut to involve youth and vulnerable communities of color in plans to fight climate change.
Climate change cannot be effectively tackled without input from the most vulnerable, said Immad Ahmed, who heads Obat Helpers, a nonprofit that provides education and economic empowerment to refugees in Bangladesh. Ahmed was one of several experts invited to speak at a legislative hearing on climate disasters and building community resilience at the State Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Tuesday.
“You don’t go in to build solutions with your own personal bias," Ahmed said. "You go in to understand what those people are truly going through. Engaging youth and women, that's where you start the conversation. That’s who you design solutions with. You co-create solutions with them."
That makes for a more effective plan, he said.
“So, it’s not really about sympathy. It is about building solutions around empathy.”
State Senator Saud Anwar, the co-chair of the Public Health Committee, and state Representative Christine Palm, the vice chair of the Environment Committee, organized the hearing. They seek to improve on a state climate change bill that failed to pass this year.
