Educating the community to help those in need during climate catastrophes: Lessons learned from the Rio Grande do Sul disaster where community workers and health workers can help each other

Nearly 4.5 billion people are now vulnerable to weather events that can cause significant harm, with half of them living below the poverty line. There is not a lot of research on how to help people who face mental-health challenges as a result of climate disasters. This is especially true in low-and middle-income countries, which are most vulnerable to these crises. Lessons have begun to arise from studies conducted immediately after the Rio Grande do Sul disaster, such as how community members can support each other in the initial response to a disaster to prevent trauma.

The results were the same as those from other parts of the world. “The greater the socio-economic vulnerability, the more symptoms of anxiety, depression and burnout they reported,” Hauck says. She hopes that the findings could be used to help direct resources in other crises. She says educating the population to help one another is the best tactic given how widespread the symptoms were.

Jaskulski regularly went back to check on her home after it was flooded. She says that it did not look like the same street. “That really affected me emotionally because it’s my home, I’ve lived there my whole life, and I built it with a lot of sacrifice.”

The clinic in which Jaskulski works to help people navigate the health-care system was spared by the flood waters, but remained closed for more than a month, because it was cut off entirely from its surroundings.

Jaskulski and other community-health workers were going to return to work after the clinic reopened after dealing with their own losses. All we can do when we see someone who is suffering is cry with them. Because now we are not just health-care professionals, we are also victims,” said Janete Pereira, one of the clinic’s community-health workers.

Nearly all his sessions in May and June focused on the flooding, he says. “Those who weren’t directly affected worked as volunteers and talked about how exhausting it was. Many brought up the fear of it happening again.”

How can we recover when a climate disaster destroys your city? Comment on the expert’s advice from Jurema Nunes Jardim

Jurema Nunes Jardim, who had been living at the same address for over fifty years, had never seen anything like it. I cried a lot. She stated that she would fall asleep and wake up thinking about the things she had lost.

Most people going through a disaster experience symptoms of distress that include anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness. This is normal and, for most people, the symptoms will go away with time, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But studies have pointed to actions that can prevent these from becoming long-term mental-health issues.

The first is ensuring that people have access to basic necessities such as shelter, water, food and safety. Bruno Paz Mosqueiro says that a sense of safety is more important than access to psychologists and psychiatrists.

The WHO says that communities can help themselves by helping each other solve problems. “The more the community helps each other, the more people feel supported, which reduces rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example,” Mosqueiro says. Another WHO recommendation is to offer psychological first aid, which can be done by any community member with basic training. It involves listening to the individual, without pressuring them to talk, and helping them to address immediate needs.

She says that as a result people started to see themselves as traumatized victims, which can further weaken their sense of community. Collective efforts and demands for rights are also forms of mental-health action. If you individualize suffering with a diagnosis, you assume that it is now for yourself, and that’s a mistake.

And that is why those who provide care should avoid referring to ‘symptoms’ and instead talk about ‘expected reactions’ when discussing difficulty sleeping, anxiety and other common outcomes of a traumatic event, says Noal. We only help people get help if the issues persist. They need to utilize their own coping strategies; otherwise, they risk becoming dependent on health-care professionals.”

Hauck says that the use of Valium is not permissible in the initial 48 hours after a trauma. They are known to impair the consolidation of traumatic memories and increase the risk of PTSD.

Source: How to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city

How to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city? Eliana Silva de Arajo’s case ruined by the May 2023 floods

The May floods destroyed Eliana Silva de Arajo’s home. Her house in the Taquari Valley region in the central part of the state was destroyed by a large flood that struck the area in September 2023. Then, in May, the school where she, her daughter and granddaughter were taking refuge was inundated, forcing them and hundreds of people who had already been displaced to relocate to a new shelter.

Many people who were displaced in Porto Alegre, but not the Taquari Valley region, returned to their homes after the water subsided, but some neighbourhoods were completely wiped out. And as a result, shelters in that area are still crowded: there simply aren’t enough houses for the displaced families.

As a microcosm of society, the shelters are affected by problems such as violence and alcohol and drug misuse, contributing to the mental-health toll of the disaster. Adding to that, Araújo says that her neighbours discriminate against her because she is from Bahia, a lower-income state in the northeast of Brazil.

“What affects me the most is not even the floods, it’s the people,” she says. I felt bad after the last flood because of the prejudice.

She had to receive mental health care at a certain point, but she feels better now, and she made peace with the fact that it might take a long time for her to have her own place again.

Passo de Estrela was one of the places that was ruined by the flooding, and has a psychologist at it. In a group therapy session with women from the community, he asked them to write down all their memories of the lost neighbourhood in a notebook.

“One of them brought up that the church where she got married and later baptized her children doesn’t exist any more. And even the photographs of these events were lost, so she is losing that memory,” he says, his voice choked with emotion.

Source: How to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city

What would you like to see in Porto de Estrela? Share your thoughts with me, or how to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city

In a workshop organized by Ferreira a few months ago, the participants were asked to share what they would like to happen to Passo de Estrela, knowing that they will not be able to live there again. They said that they would like to see it as a public area with parks, trees and friends.

Social support was important to Jardim and his mother as they rebuilt their lives after the flood had drained away. When he reached out for help, 18 friends arrived one Saturday morning to form a clean-up task force. In days, the house was ready for their return. As I left their home on a rainy morning months after the flood, I noticed the vibrant foliage in their planters. The plants were dead when I asked if they had survived the floods.

The unusual precipitation was caused by an interaction of a warm air mass from central Brazil and a cold front from the south. A rapid analysis by the World Weather Attribution initiative, which evaluates the influence of global warming on extreme weather events, found that human-induced climate change increased both the likelihood and the intensity of the event.

The heavy rains lasted several days between late April and mid-May, pouring mainly in the Guaíba River basin, which supplies water to Porto Alegre, and several of its tributaries. Some areas of the state received over one meter of rain in a two week period.

Source: How to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city

Capczinski’s “Scrabble” in the Rio Grande do Sul: How Science and Nature Will Help Us In The Run-up to the US Election

The event organizers sent participants who were not living in the town to the nearest functioning airport so they could get home before the situation got worse. Kapczinski remembers it as a real scramble.

The floods that hit the Rio Grande doSul, Brazil in April and May affected more than two million people. A combination of rain, flooding and infrastructure failures led to the disaster, which displaced more than 500,000 people and resulted in the deaths of 183.

The brown lines on the wall marked different levels of water after the flood lingered for weeks. She would not be able to return to her house for more than a month. The furniture was ruined, and only the items placed on her bed were spared, the mattress having floated like a lifeboat.

In the wake of devastating floods in the South of Brazil, researchers are working out how best to help people — plus, what concerns do Nature ’s readers have about the US election.

Nature got a sense of what is on the mind of researchers in the run-up to the US election, so it conducted a poll of readers. The survey respondents identified themselves as researchers, and they support vice-president Harris. Many also voiced concerns about a possible victory for former President Trump, saying that they would consider changing where they would live if he wins. Jeff tells us more about the results and how science will be affected by them.

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