Building Resilience to Climate Change and Health: Can Adolescents in Urban Slums be the Answer?

Climate change and health hazards can be tackled by developing potential of adolescents from urban slums. The paper describes profile of adolescents in slums of flood vulnerable Surat city along with their climate change inclusive health perspective. Mixed methods were used: survey, focused groups and flood memory picturing. Adolescent shared 1/5th slum population. Assessment on schooling and health scales favours considering them as entitled resilience providers. Adolescents’ health perspective ranged from concrete information, say 90 percent named vector borne diseases (climate change associated health problems); to Abstract health concept. Slum experience enabled them to link health with climate change induced migration, livelihood, water scarcity, poverty, weather events and conflicts as stress sources. They recognized personal and environmental behaviour as health determinants. Peers, television and teachers were preferred health information sources. Perceived risk enabled adolescents to think possible mitigation and adaptation actions. Handholding can prove adolescents as resilience agents.