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The Migration Blanket – Climate Solidarity is a sequel to Salma Zulfiqar’s award-winning film Solidarity: The Migration Blanket, which won Best Animated Short at last year’s Berlin Independent Film Festival
“Our house was destroyed and we couldn’t go to school when the floods came. Climate change destroyed our agricultural land,” Shofika, Rohingya refugee, Bangladesh.
Shofika is one of 150 young refugees and marginalized women from the UK and Commonwealth countries who have participated in The Migration Blanket film project and a woman on the frontline of the climate crisis.
The Migration Blanket – Climate Solidarity shows how climate change is destroying women’s lives, causing early marriage, preventing access to education, causing hunger and leading to violence against women.
“People are going hungry in Nairobi because of climate change,” said Huda, a student in Kenya.
The film features more than 400 pieces of handcrafted artwork by 150 women from 17 countries. These were created in the powerful ARTconnects workshops led by international artist and human rights activist Salma Zulfiqar.
Participating countries include: Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cameroon ,Greece, Jordan, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, UK, Zambia.
“The film gives vulnerable refugee and marginalised women a voice, empowers them with knowledge on climate change, encourages them to take action, as well as improving their mental health,” Salma Zulfiqar explained.
“I didn’t know how climate change was affecting women and I learned that it’s stopping girls from going to school,” Molika, Birmingham college student UK said.
“We couldn’t go to college due to the storms in the UK and homes were destroyed. But in some countries, it’s forcing young girls to get married when they are ten or 12 years old.”
The project, which was supported in part by the UK Arts Council in Birmingham and the Midlands Arts Centre, saw women from camps, orphanages, and other temporary accommodation participate in 2021 to create the artwork for the film. They were inspired to take action and improve themselves by the project, which helped them learn more about climate change. To create the film, ARTconnects partnered with 17 colleges and schools across the country.
The UN says Women account for around 80% of the people who have been displaced by climate change.. Women and children Are 14 times more likely to die in a natural disaster.
Women own less than 20% of the world’s land, but when they do own land, they prosper and reinvest 90% of their income in their families and communities.
“There is no clean drinking water where I live in Balochistan because of climate change,” Maria in Pakistan said.
“The pollution is making us sick, I’m coughing and get ill from it,” Hadiqa, a refugee in India explained.
The 25-minute art film pays tribute also to Greta Thunberg & Vanessa Nakate, two of the most prominent climate activists. 2021 Malala Report on climate change and girls’ education.
“It is a call to action to ensure that women’s rights are protected as a key element in climate action and any policy making,” added Salma, whose trailblazing migrant mother, Bano – who died from Covid in 2021 – inspired her to start the project.
Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, said: “This is a powerful film which raises awareness of the urgent action we all need to take together to tackle the climate emergency and help make a positive difference to the lives of some of our sadly isolated and marginalised women in the West Midlands and right across the Commonwealth.”
The Migration Blanket – Climate Solidarity film will be shown at the Venice Biennale on 23 April, followed by a Q&A with the artist – with Further screenings in London, Oxford, Dubai and Italy – and is part of the Commonwealth Games Culture Festival 2022.
Salma Zulfiqar was recently awarded the Prime Minister’s prestigious Points of Light Award in recognition of her “exceptional service empowering refugee women through art classes” and was voted one of the most inspirational women to hail from Birmingham in the book, Once Upon a Time in Birmingham – Women Who Dared to Dream. In 2019, she received The Sunday Times Rising Star Diversity Award.
