Sapna at five

This video captures the milestones along our five year journey as a climate justice project in Australia’s South Asian diaspora. It shows the breadth and scale of our work today, and the possibilities for tomorrow. 

 

Global gathering

We hosted a global gathering to mark Sapna turning five. It was a chance for us to gather together with everyone who has been involved with Sapna in our five-year journey – Sapna community members, colleagues from the Australian climate movement and other allies from Australia, climate justice campaigners and community members from South Asia, researchers, and allies from around the world. 

At the gathering, we reflected on the deeper significance of the work we do across Australia and South Asia, and why it is essential for a South Asian climate justice project to work transnationally. 

South Asians are now Australia’s largest migrant community; and the majority of South Asians living in Australia have migrated from South Asia in the last two decades. This signifies the lived experience that Australian South Asians carry of climate impacts both in Australia and South Asia. And the responsibility of care for their communities back home that they practice, including through remitting money to support recovery and resilience building after natural disasters. 

We are building a movement of South Asians in Australia. This movement recognises the ‘entangled’ lives we lead as migrants across Australia and South Asia. This movement brings into focus our transnational climate solidarity – through joining the dots between local climate stories from South Asia, and the global, scientific language of climate change. By telling their climate stories as migrants, South Asians in Australia who care about climate justice are building a shared ground of justice. 

As migrants from one of the world’s most climate vulnerable regions, we experience and respond to the climate crisis with entanglements of care and responsibility in two worlds. Take the case of green remittances by Australian South Asians, a ‘personal’ form of climate finance. 

Green remittances by Australian South Asians are quite likely the single biggest mechanism through which climate finance flows from Australia to South Asia. 

There is a big story to tell about the scale of green remittances by Australia’s largest migrant community, and how it supports resilience on the ground in South Asia. And remind of Australia’s climate responsibility towards South Asia. 

But it is not just about scale. Each story that connects a South Asian migrant, their hard earned income in a new country, and supporting their community back home to stand back on their feet after a natural disaster counts as a story of global solidarity. 

We ended the global gathering with a call out to Australia and South Asia-based groups to collaborate with Sapna to build the climate justice work around green remittances and advocate for Australia’s climate responsibility towards South Asia.

You can watch the recording of the global gathering here.

 

What you can do

Today, Sapna is a transnational climate justice project across Australia and South Asia. Together with the climate movement in Australia and South Asia, we can:

• Build a movement of Australian South Asians who directly support climate resilience in South Asia through green remittances, and call on Australia’s climate responsibility towards South Asia

• Work across Australia and South Asia to build the justice-based claims of vulnerable communities for loss and damage and climate finance

• Hold Australian government and corporations accountable for climate responsibility and real climate solutions in South Asia

If you are a South Asian in Australia help us build a library of stories about green remittances. Start by filing out our survey and sharing it in your networks