The COP30 UN Climate Change Conference may be convening in Brazil this month but that doesn’t stop our students from getting involved. A series of climate survivor testimonials taken by Department of Writing students Ashley Ciambrelli, Raamin Hamid and Fernanda Solorza are running in the UK’s Guardian media outlet this month as part of a partnership with the Climate Disaster Project.

“This is an unprecedented career-defining opportunity for undergraduate students to have their classroom research reach a global audience with one of the most prestigious news media outlets in the world,” says CDP founder Sean Holman. “We’re training students to work on the frontlines of climate change — which is changing from a future threat to a lived experience. And this ongoing partnership with The Guardian represents the importance of those skills.”

Writing student Raamin Hamid (photo: Gouchen Wang)

Learning from traumatic experiences

Raamin Hamid captured Ruchira Gupta’s harrowing account of surviving a devastating 2005 flood in India and Ryan Kirkham’s experience with the 2023 Maui fires. Fernanda Solorza spoke with Peruvian mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya about his landmark lawsuit against German energy firm RWE and its role in increasing glacial melt. And Ashley Ciambrelli connected with Jaguar Identification Project founder Abbie Martin about the impact of fires in Brazil’s Pantanal region in 2020, which killed at least 17 million animals and burned 27% of the vegetation cover. Find out what this opportunity meant to our students in this blog story about their experiences.

“Until [I got involved with] the Climate Disaster Project, I never realized that the majority of our planet’s population has experienced a climate disaster — whether they know it or not,” says Hamid, who was moved by Gupta’s experience with the flood that killed over 900 people. “The effects of a climate disaster can vary on a very long scale, and it is important to bring those effects to light to cultivate community and encourage action.”

As an international student from Mexico, Solorza’s account of Lliuya’s lawsuit was especially meaningful. “I was determined to write his story with care, and the more I wrote, the more I could see the struggles of my own people and country through him,” she says. “I hope that readers will engage with Saúl’s testimony and reflect on whose voices are often left out of global climate conversations, even when they bear the heaviest consequences of the crisis.”

Ciambrelli feels that this experience has changed how she sees the world. “Hearing these stories firsthand helped me learn that numbers only tell part of the story, and that hearing human experiences makes it real,” she says. “We are all vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. After conducting these interviews, I realize we all play a part in these events, and each of us has something to contribute to make a difference.”

Writing student Ashley Ciambrelli  (photo: Chad Hipolito)

A new kind of journalism

Ciambrelli feels the trauma-informed perspective of the Climate Disaster Project had a real impact on her writing. “Part of our process was re-learning how to use empathy to connect with our storytellers,” she explains. “It sounds simple, but being able to trust and support each other throughout such a vulnerable storytelling process was crucial to this project’s success. Practising empathy is a lesson I will carry forward in both my writing and my life.”

Similarly, Solorza says her CDP training will impact her work going forward. “I’ve learned the importance of holding people’s stories gently. Stories are people, and people are stories. By getting to know someone, asking questions and listening, they share a vulnerable part of themselves that must be held with care. The CDP taught me that gentleness in storytelling is collaboration, not extraction. I’ll carry that forward into all my future writing.”

Hamid also realizes how unique the CDP training is when it comes to treating people’s personal stories with the utmost care and empathy. “In my future writing, I will never compromise on the amount of care which the CDP has taught me to handle my stories with.”

Writing student Fernanda Solorza (photo: Chad Hipolito)

A rare opportunity for students

All agree that having their work published by such an internationally respected media outlet is a rare opportunity. “The Guardian is a source I’ve always respected and admired as a young journalist, so being featured by them is an honour,” says Ciambrelli. “It inspires me as a writer to see what else I can accomplish when I set my mind to it. I hope this also inspires other young writers to take chances.”

Solorza describes this as “both an honour and responsibility . . . . I hope readers will reflect on those whose voices are often left out of global climate conversations, even when they bear the heaviest consequences of the crisis.” And Hamid says the whole opportunity has been extremely rewarding. “It doesn’t feel real! I never thought that I would get such a prestigious opportunity.”

For Holman, the ongoing partnership with The Guardian is an essential part of the Climate Disaster Project’s work.

“People who have lived through climate disaster today have the knowledge needed to help us survive a warmer tomorrow — but too often their knowledge isn’t shared and their experiences are forgotten,” he says. “That’s why the kind of work our students is doing with The Guardian is so important.”