The story of a Kenyan subsistence farmer, Kisilu Musya, has been made into a film and is being used as a valuable resource in educating people about the vagaries of climate change.
Kisilu says he was awakened to the problems of climate change after noticing a drift of ?the weather patterns from a seasonal format that had rain in specific months of the year to one where days of heavy rainfall would be followed by days of drought and windstorms.
Change of attitude
After some research, Kisilu, who relocated from Nairobi to his rural home in Kitui learnt that the changing weather patterns was a function of global warming, which he discovered could be countered by planting trees and organic farming practices.
The father of nine spends most of his days walking around villages, educating people on a volunteer basis about climate change and how to stop it.
He also carries a handheld camera, which he has used to take photos around farms, showing, over time, how much damage has been caused. Kisilu further ?collects weather information, which he sends out to a database of farmers around him, informing them of the kind of crops they should be cultivating at particular times and other precautionary measures to take against any eventualities.
Telling the story
It is this initiative that attracted the interest of film makers from Norway, who recorded his day-to-day life over a period of four years and packaged it in a film titled Kisilu: The Climate Diaries.
The 48-minute film premiered at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, COP 21 ?held in Paris, France, from November 30 to December 12.
World leaders, among them Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, calling for united efforts to save the planet for future generations. Kisilu felt a superstar after addressing the world’s biggest environmental conference.
Most of those ?who watched the film were ?moved to tears.
The film is available to watch for free on Al Jazeera through the link: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2015/12/kisilu-climate-diaries-151202130224609.html