Sustainability Series: BEEN HERE STAY HERE with Abdoulie Singhateh

Watch Trailer Director: David Usui

Join us on Wednesday, November 12th at 7:00 p.m. as our Sustainability Film Series concludes with a beautiful film about disappearing landscapes and a vanishing ways of life!

Admission is FREE and open to the public – Tickets are required

About the film

On a remote island, a deeply-rooted Christian fishing community grapples with the quiet erosion of their land and their traditions. Their centuries-old way of life, sustained by faith and the rhythms of the bay, is now at a poignant crossroads—one that may force them from the only home they’ve ever known.

Been Here Stay Here is a quiet, immersive portrait of Tangier Island, a centuries-old Christian fishing community in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. Long used as a symbol in the national climate conversation, Tangier is often portrayed through a lens of skepticism or scorn — framed as “America’s first climate casualty” and written off as a place in denial. This film offers another way in. With no experts, voiceovers, or statistics, Been Here Stay Here invites viewers into the lived experience of the island’s residents — through faith, memory, and the rhythms of daily life. By stepping away from spectacle and alarm, the film allows the community to speak on its own terms, revealing not denial but devotion: to place, to faith, and to a way of life that refuses easy categorization. Inspired by the work of climate scientist and Evangelical Christian Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, the film models a conversation rooted in relationship, not rhetoric. In the end, it’s less about the water at the doorstep than it is about what rises within us when we choose to listen, stay, and understand.

About the speaker

Abdoulie Singhateh is a dual degree student with Master of Science in environment Studies and Master’s in Public Administration in the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service. He is a Graduate Assistant for the Administration Hub at the Ohio University, Office of Sustainability. He holds a bachelor’s degree in development studies from the University of the Gambia.

Abdoulie has over five years of experience working for international organizations. He worked for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) country office in The Gambia, working with migrants and their host communities facilitating return and reintegration programs under the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund. He later worked for GIZ which is a German International Development Cooperation under the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Fund for Regional Stabilization and Development for two years working directly on Reintegration programs for migrants through skilled and livelihood-based training programs in The Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria. He is focused on international development corporations in the areas of environment, climate change, migration, peacebuilding and youth empowerment,

His research interest is focused on Climate-induced migration with a specific focus on exploring the complex dynamics of migration as an adaptive responsive for coastal communities in Sub -Saharan Africa with The Gambia as the country of focus.

He likes volunteering for the environment, playing soccer, hanging out with friends at the beach, and playing games during his free time.