Feature image via Canva Pro. This story was first published on Our Today with the support of the Caribbean Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship, which is a joint venture of Climate Tracker and Open Society Foundations. An edited version is republished below as part of a content-sharing agreement. When it comes to the climate crisis, marginalised communities in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) often feel the brunt of its negative impacts. These communities face a double whammy: being residents of a small island developing state and also being members of a disadvantaged group of people within their country. One such community is the blind. How easily can they access information on climate change? How much information is made available for them to access? Is it enough? If not, how much more needs to be done? Is the provision of climate funding, or lack thereof, from larger countries a contributing factor to this problem, and if so, how can it be addressed? Local organisations and policies can have set targets on paper, but without adequate funding, climate change communication for the blind may continue to fall by the wayside, leaving this community exposed and ignorant to some of the content, as well as dependent on others to relay the information. Adrienne Pinnock, manager of corporate communications and public relations at the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD), says that her organisation currently houses an informal library with accessible climate change-related content for the disabled community, including the blind: Very few of our constituents, meaning [people] from the disabled community, have approached us to consume [any] material we may have on climate change. What we find is that if we want to inform them, we would have to go where they are and have the conversation. The JCPD library offers material about climate change, as well as publications that are specific to the community of people with disabilities. One drawback is that it is unable to lend the reading material the way a typical library would, but it remains available for use in-house. Pinnock adds, though, that it is mostly non-disabled people accessing the material, either for research or study preparation. She believes that the limited traffic from the disabled community to consume the material can be attributed to a lack of awareness, both about the services JCPD offers and that the information is easily accessible at its library. In 2006, the Combined Disabilities Association developed a publication entitled, “When Disaster Strikes, Be Ready,” essentially a disaster survival guide for people with disabilities. Though it is dated, Pinnock believes the content is still relevant, and there is a version available in braille: We have copies of that at the JCPD, and we have a copy of a similar publication that came out of an international organisation. [W]e don’t have a digitised copy of that one, but our library contains other climate change material where digitised and braille copies are available. With Jamaica's Disabilities Act (2014) finally coming into effect on February 14, 2022, following its initial approval in 2014 and the affirmation of the Disabilities Regulations in 2021, the JCPD intends to rebrand itself and increase awareness about its services, what the organisation represents, and how it plans to empower the lives of persons with disabilities. According to Pinnock, there are two levels of awareness in that regard: Climate change is not a very present conversation in the space of disability even though, like everybody else, people with disabilities are impacted. So, people would not think to approach the JCPD to get information. Secondly, this is not a part of our branding today. We have information regarding climate change, but it may not inform our constituents of the fact that we have relevant information for them. As it stands, Pinnock concedes that people with disabilities are currently more likely to lean on other organisations for information. The Disabilities Act makes provisions to safeguard and enhance the welfare of persons with disabilities (PWDs) across Jamaica. It also aims to protect and promote equal rights for the disabled, and prohibits discrimination against them, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, on which Jamaica is a signatory. However, it is not explicitly clear how the disabled community, including the blind, is impacted by disaster preparedness and climate change concerns. In 2022, experts of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, though pleased with the Act, questioned a Jamaican delegation about how specific measures are being taken to include persons with disabilities in disaster preparedness.