Rebecca Parasnath is 23 and lives in a wooden stilt house without electricity or sewer connections on the outskirts of Georgetown, Guyana. Like much of the city, her neighbourhood, Wortmanville, is about two metres below sea level and protected by the Kingston Seawall, a 280-mile barrier built in 1860 to keep the sea at bay .
Georgetown is one of the world’s most vulnerable capitals when it comes to extreme flooding and rising sea levels. In 2005, the city was hit by floods that affected 290,000 people, a reminder of Guyana’s Indigenous meaning – “land of many waters”.
