Seigonie Mohammed
Climate Change Editor
seigonie.mohammed@guardian.co.tt
CASTRIES, St Lucia: For Caribbean children, climate change is no longer a distant threat.
It is the sweltering classroom, the empty water tank and the school transformed into a hurricane shelter. And when disaster strikes, children can face another challenge—being asked to recount their experiences to cameras and reporters searching for the human story.
As climate threats increase across the Caribbean, journalists are being challenged to consider not only what happens to children during emergencies, but what can happen when their stories are told without sufficient care.
A UNICEF-commissioned study found 35 per cent of children across six Eastern Caribbean countries are already exposed to at least three climate hazards, potentially rising to more than nine in ten by mid-century.
The risks extend beyond storms to disrupted schooling, health, livelihoods and psychological wellbeing.
These concerns are also relevant to Trinidad and Tobago amid flooding, extreme heat and water pressures.
But as more children experience climate-related emergencies, another question confronts local newsrooms: how do journalists tell their stories without adding to their trauma?
That question was at the centre of a two-day CDEMA and UNICEF training in St Lucia for media workers from eight participating states on ethical child-rights and disaster reporting.
The costs we don’t see
UNICEF’s Lisa McClean-Trotman said one of the most striking issues is what happens beyond the physical destruction.
“Many times we focus on how much it costs to rebuild schools, to repair roads, to rebuild homes, the impact on the fishing industry and so on, but we don’t look at the psychosocial impact on children, also the learning loss.”
Those effects are harder to photograph and sometimes harder to quantify.
McClean-Trotman said stress itself can affect learning, meaning replacing textbooks, devices or buildings does not necessarily restore what a child has lost.
That makes the journalist’s role particularly sensitive.
“Yes, it’s important to get the story out. We want people to be aware, but what impact will this have on the child, right? So you think in terms of “do no harm.”
She said reporters should look for signs that a child is traumatised and consider whether continuing an interview could cause further harm, even where permission to conduct the interview has already been obtained.
The pressure to get the picture
For Inspire Antigua and Barbuda’s Media Director, Azara Lavia, the workshop exposed the difficulty behind decisions often made quickly in newsrooms.
“Sometimes there are grey areas that you need to pause and think: how will this affect the child? Are we going to take the child or children to re-traumatisation just because we want to get it first, just because we want this beautiful front page story?”
It is not, she stressed, an argument for censorship.
Instead, she said, journalists must balance their responsibility to inform the public against the possibility that publication could strip a child of dignity or deepen existing trauma.
Don’t wait for disaster
CDEMA and UNICEF are also urging Caribbean journalists to think beyond covering disasters only after they strike.
UNICEF representative Patrick Knight said reporters can begin testing preparedness now, particularly in the education system.
He pointed to Caribbean experiences where schools have remained emergency shelters for extended periods after hurricanes, compounding the disruption for children already recovering from disaster.
That gives newsrooms an accountability story before the next storm: Are alternative shelters available? How will education continue after a disaster? And do emergency plans protect the most vulnerable children?
Those questions carry added urgency.
The climate analysis found that every child, school and health facility assessed was within 100 kilometres of the track of at least one major hurricane since 1980.
Newsrooms face their own test
Barbados’ NationNews Publication Editor, Haydn Gill, acknowledged that children can easily become secondary considerations when reporters are trying to capture the scale of a disaster.
The training, he said, was “an eye opener.”
“Children, when they are impacted, yes, there’s a story to tell, but we have to do so in a responsible manner.”
Gill said protecting children’s “dignity, the privacy and the rights” would be a key consideration in his newsroom going forward.
CDEMA Communications and Public Relations Specialist Keith Goddard said the objective is not simply to produce journalists capable of covering the next emergency, but reporters who understand the consequences their work can have on the humanitarian response and affected communities.
CDEMA intends to examine participants’ reporting over the next six to 12 months, including their language, images and treatment of disaster stories, to determine whether the training is changing newsroom practice.
For Caribbean journalism, that may be where the climate study and the media training ultimately intersect.
The next disaster will bring damaged communities, displaced families and children with powerful stories to tell.
Journalists will have a responsibility to document them. But they will also have another responsibility: to make sure that getting the story does not become another part of the harm a child has to survive.
