Case Study Summary

This case study is being carried out by a team of four members of the youth-based Gross International Nature (GIN) organization. The organization is committed to enforcing environmental conservation and ensuring the inclusion and empowerment of communities through advocacy, education, research, and implementation of sustainable technologies.

This case study is an entirely youth-led initiative to examine a climate change education (CCE) initiative in the rural regions of Bhutan and Nepal of Marek and Lwang Ghalel, located in the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. The CCE initiative promotes a transboundary knowledge exchange channel between youth and the Marek and Lwang Ghalel communities to mitigate climate change challenges and impacts. The CCE initiative encourages youth leadership in environmental conservation through locally-led adaptation practices. Having conducted a pilot of the CCE initiative in the two communities, the team now plans to utilize their established connection to study and reinforce community and youth involvement. 

As part of the case study research, the team will conduct region-specific loss and damage training sessions focused on the communities’ current emotions, needs, and perceptions concerning climate change impacts. During the sessions, the researchers will gather qualitative data on participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours regarding climate change through in-person surveys and interviews. The researchers will then conduct a thematic analysis of the participants’ responses. The project further incorporates rainfall and temperature trends over the past 20 years to contextualize the study findings. Ultimately, this study seeks to provide information about ways to overcome feelings of grief, anxiety, apathy, and denial among the communities and youth stemming from past climate change-induced disasters in the region.