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What is your name? How old are you? And where do you live?

My name is Saurav Dhakal. I’m 33 years old. I live in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. But I frequently travel around the mountain communities of the country.

 How does climate change affect your everyday life in your community?

We live in the mountains and so climate change affects us very closely. Right now I live in the capital city without electricity. But Nepal does have a plentiful water supply. People in the mountains generally don’t have much access to basic needs such as food, electricity, drinking water, healthcare or education. So it becomes very hard to adapt especially in the face of growing climate change.

 What trigger event led you to start fighting climate change?

As a journalist, I’ve worked on different stories related to environment and climate. Gradually I realized that the stories related to these issues did not get much attention in the media. Then I started a new approach to make those issues prominent. Basically, I make stories accessible to the mainstream via my websitewww.storycycle.com

How exactly do you fight climate change?

“Story Cycle” helps storytellers from different communities to develop, produce and disseminate their own stories. These films allow people to explore different topics, including how the changing climate is impacting them and their families, how they are coping, and what they need to do in order to adapt. We listen and capture multimedia stories from the community and disseminate them to the world via our website (www.storycycle.com), our partners in mainstream media agencies and public showings. We also use other conventional ways such as multimedia magazines, MMS, and DVD clips for distribution to communities without Internet access. A story cycle is complete when stories flow from the source to the masses and then return to their origin. Recently, I visited 22 districts in Upper Hills and in the mountains of Nepal. I collected thousands of photos, videos, stories and anecdotes about the vulnerability and struggles of Himalayan communities. I want to create an extensive multimedia database from all this. It is supposed to be a tool for the government of Nepal and the people of the world to showcase the plight of the Himalaya and Himalayan communities as a result of climate change. Such communication tools will also help Nepal in international climate negotiations.

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