Profile: Lula Zeid

I’ve always been passionate about climate change, but an immersion experience I had this summer completely refined how I see the crisis and the people suffering most directly from it.

For six weeks I traveled with Where There Be Dragons through mainland and coastal Madagascar in order to see, experience, and better understand Malagasy culture and the country itself. While our experience wasn’t centered around learning about climate change, it was clear from the beginning that that would be an undeniable part of our reality.

From school I’ve had the privilege of learning about the climate crisis from a scientific perspective, much less a humanitarian one. One of the aspects of the two week-long homestays we did in both Ambatomanga and Morondava was the opportunity to better understand, if only for a couple days, the experience of being directly impacted by the climate crisis and how local communities adapt to it. Whether it was figuring out where to plant rice in unpredictable conditions or deciding which was the safest net to use for preserving marine biology, the stories and experiences of how communities have been forced to adapt to these changes are too often overlooked.

I wanted to join FXB Climate Advocates because I have an obligation to the Red Island, my host families there, and the country I was privileged enough to experience for a summer. I hope that the things I learned there and have continued to broaden my understanding of will not only be helpful to this group, but the greater climate battle we all face together.