“You know that moment, of like, adrenaline rush you feel? That’s how I felt seeing the rain,” 21 year old Ayshka Najib said as she recounted how a holiday to visit family in Kerala, India turned into the most traumatic experience of her life.

When the gentle drumming of rain first started reverberating off the roof, Ayshka was excited. “In Dubai, it’s the opposite. We have extreme heat waves and water scarcity,” she said. “But slowly my smile started to fade away.”

Over the next few days Ayshka was glued to her phone, seeking out the latest updates as more and more areas around her flooded. She spent days constantly monitoring colour-coded flood maps and hoping her area would not turn from the relative safety of orange to the life-threatening danger of red. With thousands of people already forced to evacuate their homes, Ayshka would lay awake at night wondering if her municipality would be next.

“I was so scared that if I closed my eyes the next time I opened them I’d be under water,” Ayshka said.

Her worst fears were not realised but she did have to evacuate. It was a stressful experience that was somewhat eased by wily local fishermen who helped her family navigate the flooded streets.

The dramatic episode made Ayshka realise that indigenous people living with the impacts of climate change on a daily basis have the knowledge to address this fundamental challenge, but are too often silenced or ignored.