Every morning, Bridget Chanda places her prosthetic legs beside her bed, pulls on her stockings and pushes the remains of her limbs into the prosthetics as best she can. After six years they no longer fit, and it's painful to stand or walk for too long, but it doesn't faze her much. “I still manage somehow,” she said. “I am a girl on a mission.' Chanda, 18, is intent on helping educate Zambia's deaf community about climate change.
Chanda recalls struggling to find the words to explain mulching, for example — adding organic material to soil to help trap moisture — or climate adaptation, the ways people can adjust to more extreme weather. “It’s difficult sometimes,” said Chanda. “I sometimes have to finger-spell and when I miss a letter or two it makes it difficult for some students who are deaf.