On the 23rd of June 2025, AHRI faculty member and WEMA Principal Investigator, Prof Collins Iwuji, joined a panel at The Conduit's Climate and the Future of Health event in London. The panel discussion focused on the theme of protecting mental health in a climate crisis. The session unpacked a critical but under-discussed truth: while we often talk about climate change in terms of rising seas and soaring temperatures and impacts on physical health, we rarely speak about its impact on mental health.
Collins spotlighted the WEMA project, sharing insights on how extreme weather events affect the mental health of vulnerable populations in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. To ground the data in lived experience, he presented a digital story from a community-based co-researcher in Mukuru kwa Rueben, a settlement in Nairobi. The story recounted the emotional toll of surviving catastrophic flooding.
Thank you to The Conduit for elevating this critical conversation. To read more about the event, click here.
Image credit: Edward Howell Photography
