Speaker 1: This for all you guys, so you get there.
Speaker 2: Twice In the week I spent on Marjoro, I didn't
Speaker 2: get to sleep until after midnight because the hotel's event
Speaker 2: space was about eight feet from my pillow and someone
Speaker 2: in that event space was having an absolute rago. Before
Speaker 2: trying and failing to go to sleep, I chatted with
Speaker 2: some folks who were at the party to see what
Speaker 2: was going on. The first night was a first birthday party.
Speaker 2: Infant mortality has been so high in this area in
Speaker 2: the past that children making it through the first year
Speaker 2: of their life was a cause for massive celebration. It
Speaker 2: was rather sweet to see adults enjoying such a good
Speaker 2: time around a one year old who had no idea
Speaker 2: what was going on. The next party, a few days
Speaker 2: later was no less festive, but for a much more
Speaker 2: somber reason. It was a celebration to an eight year
Speaker 2: old girl who died exactly one year before. People showed
Speaker 2: me her photo, and despite my condolences, they assured me
Speaker 2: that it wasn't a sad affair. I don't want to
Speaker 2: make this series a sad affair either, because despite the
Speaker 2: incredible challenges they have faced, Marshally's people have persevered, and
Speaker 2: they clearly have a great pride in their islands, and
Speaker 2: I don't think they would want to be seen as
Speaker 2: helpless and acted upon by global forces beyond their control. Instead,
Speaker 2: they should be seen as a strong community that has
Speaker 2: withstood some of the worst things a history can thriller
Speaker 2: community and continue to thrive. As we spoke about yesterday,
Speaker 2: they're taking huge steps to ensure that they lead the
Speaker 2: way on sustainable development. They're also ensuring their future in
Speaker 2: other ways. Some of those might not be as shiny
Speaker 2: and glitzy as solar power grids or canoes powered by
Speaker 2: the sun, but which have made a huge difference to
Speaker 2: the residence of the country, particularly in the outer atolls.
Speaker 2: What I want to talk about today is one of
Speaker 2: those projects. It's a project imagined, implemented, and executed by
Speaker 2: the women of Quarter in the name means women who
Speaker 2: rise at dawn, and it's very appropriate every interview you've
Speaker 2: heard so far and every place we went to thanks
Speaker 2: to the women of Kio. The trip I was part
Speaker 2: of was there to witness the installation of the final
Speaker 2: water filters on the island of wrong Ram that will
Speaker 2: bring to a successful conclusion a five year project to
Speaker 2: ensure that every single person in the Marshall Islands had
Speaker 2: access to clean water. I'll let them introduce themselves to
Speaker 2: you as it did to us.
Speaker 1: My name is Francine wasase Jacklick, but most people around
Speaker 1: town called me, so if you hear Francine, they're not
Speaker 1: going to go today. I am a queu member. I'm
Speaker 1: one of the officers as the secretary, and I've been
Speaker 1: a queue member of GOSH. I can't remember when, but
Speaker 1: you know we've got we've come along when he is
Speaker 1: about seventeen years old right now? Wow, seventeen. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been a very.
Speaker 3: Fun road.
Speaker 1: It's my fun job outside from Q. As my fun work,
Speaker 1: I work at the Ministry of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 1: My permanent position is the Deputy Secretary overseeing Office of
Speaker 1: Health Planning, Policy, Preparedness, Personnel and epidem analogy. And three
Speaker 1: months ago I was also given the authority rule as
Speaker 1: the acting Secretary of Health because the Secretary was not
Speaker 1: the nude politics. So yeah, Q is q Corina Rani
Speaker 1: and we're very happy because our founder is here and
Speaker 1: it's money.
Speaker 4: So we'll do introduction and then we'll go into the agenda.
Speaker 4: Is that okay, okay, so I will hand it to
Speaker 4: the bag, which is our founder money.
Speaker 1: Somebody go ahead, ill everyone.
Speaker 5: Hi, how come my money?
Speaker 6: I am the cocoon there?
Speaker 7: You actually not.
Speaker 6: We're really happy that you've made it. You know, your
Speaker 6: flight wasn't canceled last week. So many flights are canceled,
Speaker 6: so were so but welcome.
Speaker 3: In our language, we say yah yeah.
Speaker 4: Means rainbow and quays you.
Speaker 7: So you are a rainbow to us.
Speaker 3: I am a mother for now.
Speaker 5: I don't I don't work.
Speaker 3: Most of us have their work, but I'm a full
Speaker 3: time mother and this is my baby. Actually, Kiyo started
Speaker 3: sixteen years ago. Myself and a friend.
Speaker 5: We were in school in the East Coast and we
Speaker 5: graduated and we all came back and you know, we
Speaker 5: were raised with this mentality to give back.
Speaker 3: We have lots of Marshallese proverbs and what bio means.
Speaker 7: To turn the tides.
Speaker 8: So it was our time to turn the tides.
Speaker 3: So we banded together, always like minded, smart ladies and
Speaker 3: created Q And it's a volunteer organization.
Speaker 7: We do this in our sleep.
Speaker 9: Basically all volunteer, yes.
Speaker 3: So we do various work from small projects like you know,
Speaker 3: reading with the kids and just.
Speaker 6: Big projects like water.
Speaker 4: It's water culture project.
Speaker 5: My name is Kathleen. I work for the Ministry of
Speaker 5: Natural Resources and Commerce with the Fisheries.
Speaker 8: Memora and I've been in film members and it's of
Speaker 8: course you're what sixteen years ago and it is like
Speaker 8: moving said, it's it's an honor and we are very
Speaker 8: humble when visited. A welcome you all and hope we
Speaker 8: have a great visit.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Okay, names all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but my name is Samantha.
Speaker 11: I work at the Munictrial Fight Access as an accountant
Speaker 11: and I'm cure of treasure.
Speaker 12: Thank you, thank.
Speaker 13: You me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, why everyone, and welcome you to our shore.
Speaker 14: My name is Graised, but everyone call me Kuma.
Speaker 1: So I'm very pleased to meet all of you.
Speaker 14: When they say we have uh all these media, you know,
Speaker 14: big news media, I would let come. We probably say
Speaker 14: that I was kind of nervous, but anyways, I've been
Speaker 14: a few remembers since twenty fourteen, and I was so
Speaker 14: amazed by all the work that these ladies have been
Speaker 14: doing for the Marshall Islands. And I'm there probably be
Speaker 14: part of quet club. I work at Romola at all
Speaker 14: Local Government and I'm not sure you know, but Ronav
Speaker 14: is one of those. It's all that was affected by
Speaker 14: the nuclear testing.
Speaker 2: So again, welcome here. Work with Sawyer, the people who
Speaker 2: make the Ubiquitous water filter, which is a favorite for
Speaker 2: through hikers and other outdoors people, to provide a water
Speaker 2: filtration system that allows Marshal's people to filter the rain
Speaker 2: water they collect and remove harmful bacteria that can cause
Speaker 2: diarrhea and vomiting. Well, these might seem undesirables listeners in
Speaker 2: the US, they can be fatal in other settings. Twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: around one point five million people died from diarrheal diseases.
Speaker 2: That's more than all violent deaths combined. Around half a
Speaker 2: million of those deaths were children. One thing that's remarkable
Speaker 2: about the project is a way it was realized. KEO
Speaker 2: began distribution in the most remote and hard to reach
Speaker 2: the tolls, taking tiny boats across choppy seas for days
Speaker 2: at a time to get to remote islands, and then
Speaker 2: working with traditional women leaders to ensure that everyone on
Speaker 2: the islands knew how to use the filters. Then they
Speaker 2: began working towards Marjora the capitol. I've seen lots of
Speaker 2: ENDO projects in dozens of countries I've worked with someone,
Speaker 2: but I've rarely seen a model that prioritizes need this well.
Speaker 2: In far too many cases, proximity to power ensures access
Speaker 2: to resources. This is a global problem. Just look at
Speaker 2: how the US distributed masks and COVID resources to reservations
Speaker 2: last or if I step outside, they can see how
Speaker 2: the lowest income parts of San Diego, the city I
Speaker 2: live in, have the worst roads and get the least
Speaker 2: infrastructure spending. The fact that KYO did things differently is
Speaker 2: a testament to the strength of their commitment to their community.
Speaker 2: In fact, the project finished distribution during my trip to
Speaker 2: Marshall Islands, completing the last island on madro Atoll in
Speaker 2: early July, but a few days later than that, when
Speaker 2: QO invited myself and some other journalists to a goodbye breakfast,
Speaker 2: they presented a filter to the former President of the
Speaker 2: Republic of Marshall Islands, hilde Hind, Despite being the last
Speaker 2: person to get one. She was very grateful and it
Speaker 2: served as a great illustration of the priorities of the group.
Speaker 2: They wanted to go to the hardest places first because
Speaker 2: they knew people then needed help. The most his President
Speaker 2: Hilde Heine. After receiving her filter.
Speaker 9: I was telling Monique that we don't drink from our
Speaker 9: tab water hours we have our own system, or we
Speaker 9: don't know if it's cleaned, so we buy our drinking
Speaker 9: water all the time. So with this one I probably
Speaker 9: will stop bang for to make pure water.
Speaker 2: I joined Kio and several other journalists for the final
Speaker 2: leg of their project, which involves installing the water filters.
Speaker 2: This doesn't really take long. They're basically a soil filter
Speaker 2: attached to a five gallon bucket with a length of
Speaker 2: flexible hose, and then explaining their value and upkeep to
Speaker 2: the community. As we heard yesterday, ground water is harder
Speaker 2: and harder to come by in the Marshall Islands thanks
Speaker 2: to climate change, and so people rely almost exclusively on rainwater.
Speaker 2: They collect rainwater in giant plastic tanks. They've only recently
Speaker 2: replaced a hodgepodge of different collection vessels. Incidentally, a visiting
Speaker 2: scientist from a CDC told me that the installation of
Speaker 2: these tanks has increased a safe disposal of waste because
Speaker 2: people no longer need to take their bins to collect
Speaker 2: rainwater when it rains. Once water is in the tanks.
Speaker 2: The residents can draw it out into their five gallon
Speaker 2: bucket and then filter it for safe drinking. The soil
Speaker 2: filter system may seem very simple, and it is, but
Speaker 2: that's what makes it a perfect solution here. A complicated
Speaker 2: electric filter, or one that relied on pipe water pressure
Speaker 2: or had a ton of moving parts would require constant maintenance,
Speaker 2: which is hard given a long journey to the outer Islands.
Speaker 2: In my career in journalism and in nonprofit, I've seen
Speaker 2: countless well intentioned aid projects completely failed to consider the
Speaker 2: need for sustainability and become useless olities in a few years.
Speaker 2: Cargo bikes made a huge different coffee farmers in Rwanda
Speaker 2: until they needed new brake pads and there wasn't an
Speaker 2: importer for them. The same goes for countless glucometers I've
Speaker 2: seen distributed to people who can't access the batteries they
Speaker 2: use or the test trips they rely on. This won't
Speaker 2: happen in the Marshall Islands in part because the project
Speaker 2: was led by the community itself and not by outside
Speaker 2: nonprofits looking to maximize donation dollars or media opportunities, and
Speaker 2: in part because the only maintenance or sort of filter
Speaker 2: needs is a backflush of the filtered water that it makes.
Speaker 2: Yesterday we had a little from the Marshal Lee's Environmental
Speaker 2: Protection Agency about how they grapple with climate change. Today,
Speaker 2: I want to explain how they're working alongside KIO to
Speaker 2: ensure that even as sea levels rise, Marshal's people will
Speaker 2: have access to safe water. The Marshal Lease EPA works
Speaker 2: to ensure that the water in people's tanks isn't contaminated,
Speaker 2: and the filters that KIA provided work to make sure
Speaker 2: that even if it is, people won't get sick. They
Speaker 2: often travel to the outer islons together to reduce the
Speaker 2: cost sharing a small boat. It's a rare example of
Speaker 2: a nonprofit in the government working together without competing or
Speaker 2: doing the same thing twice. At first, Marianna explained, people
Speaker 2: weren't sure that such a tiny filter could make such
Speaker 2: a big difference, so KIA worked with the EPA to
Speaker 2: use a visual test for microbial activity to show people
Speaker 2: how effective it was. He She is explaining how the
Speaker 2: EPA helped KIO build trust in the efficacy of the
Speaker 2: soil filters.
Speaker 12: When Sires and Kio approached us with the filters. Before that,
Speaker 12: a lot of people were already asking us, so, can
Speaker 12: we can we trust this, you know, can you do
Speaker 12: a test in your lab to tell us and confirm
Speaker 12: that this is, you know, as good as the claim
Speaker 12: it to be.
Speaker 2: Doing the test allowed the e PA to help ko
Speaker 2: get greater uptake for their filters and allowed Kio to
Speaker 2: help the EPA achieve one of its mandated goals.
Speaker 12: And so when we produced these very visual like Quanta
Speaker 12: Quanta or Quanti trays, the the experts will.
Speaker 11: Get into it.
Speaker 12: But when we produce them and show a visual contrast
Speaker 12: between the water before the filter and then the water
Speaker 12: before the after the filter filtration, it was you know amazing,
Speaker 12: like it's it's so clean, and you know, we we
Speaker 12: make decisions based on science, and that science right there,
Speaker 12: and so we use that visual photograph outside of that
Speaker 12: that that meeting to show people, you know, we're not
Speaker 12: going to get in to the microbils of whatever. This
Speaker 12: is the difference the water before the filter and then after.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 12: We're just really happy that Kiyo was able to include us.
Speaker 12: This is one of our mandates, but we're never resourced
Speaker 12: that way to do all of the things that we
Speaker 12: want to do to address water quality issues.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's impossible to deal with the water issue
Speaker 2: in isolation. Everything in the Marshall Islands are really anywhere
Speaker 2: elsewhere you're paying attention has to take into account the
Speaker 2: impact of climate change and how communities are going to
Speaker 2: survive when faced with an increasingly hostile home planet. No
Speaker 2: yain't explained how access to clean water helps make the
Speaker 2: community in the Marshall Islands even more resilient.
Speaker 12: Well, if you're trying to survive, the last thing you
Speaker 12: want to worry about is an outbreak of diarrhea or
Speaker 12: apatitis or you know, water born diseases that are preventable,
Speaker 12: and so clean water, you know you're much much more
Speaker 12: better as a community if you can thrive and on
Speaker 12: clean water. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1: Water is life.
Speaker 2: One night during my trip to the Marshall Islands, I
Speaker 2: was able to join Kia for a dinner that celebrated
Speaker 2: the completion of their water project, meaning that everyone in
Speaker 2: the Marshall Islands had access to water that won't make
Speaker 2: them sick. To get a better sense of what this
Speaker 2: really means, I wanted to talk to some families who
Speaker 2: had received those filters and to see what the clean
Speaker 2: water access meant to them. We've all heard that water
Speaker 2: is life, and that was a slogan news for Kio's project,
Speaker 2: but it's difficult to appreciate that if you live in
Speaker 2: a place where you can just turn on a tap
Speaker 2: and have access to clean, safe water whenever you want.
Speaker 2: When Kio made their posters for that dinner, they included
Speaker 2: a photo of a little girl on Arno Island who'd
Speaker 2: been one of the first to receive their filters, happily
Speaker 2: drinking from a jar of clean water. That was back
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. Since then they thought they'd heard the
Speaker 2: terrible news that she died, but just before the dinner
Speaker 2: they found out she hadn't, and so they invited her
Speaker 2: to join the celebration. I was able to sit down
Speaker 2: with her, her mother, and other recipients of the filters
Speaker 2: for a quick interview via translator. On the tiny island
Speaker 2: of boken Boat, al.
Speaker 7: So, they never filtered the water before. They would drink
Speaker 7: straight from the water wells or the water catchments.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, she said, people would get sick. We also spoke
Speaker 2: to Aneiti, a resident of Wrong Wrong, on the day
Speaker 2: that she got her filter Frontine helped translate her.
Speaker 15: Responses, Yanity, thank you, okay, but she had heard about
Speaker 15: that there was going to be filters coming to the island.
Speaker 1: When she first heard, she thought the filters were going
Speaker 1: to go directly to the water tanks. And now that
Speaker 1: it's more accessible, it's like she saw this bucket. She's happy.
Speaker 1: It's better. It's better.
Speaker 16: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Recently there have been an outbreak of diary around the atoll,
Speaker 2: so this was a welcome relief.
Speaker 1: So she had heard that there was optic of cases
Speaker 1: in major, the capital, and when she had first learned
Speaker 1: about her she was scared and worried. But to hear
Speaker 1: that there's folks coming here to the island to check
Speaker 1: on the water, it made them feel a little bit more.
Speaker 2: You addings the family from Ana who travel a long
Speaker 2: way on a small boat to meet us, we're looking
Speaker 2: forward to getting back to their home. Life on the
Speaker 2: outer a tolls isn't easy, but it's not one they
Speaker 2: want to walk away from. With the threat of climate
Speaker 2: change already putting their home in peril, having access to
Speaker 2: clean water must be a welcome relief. I asked to say,
Speaker 2: preferred life here on the Capitol a toll or back home.
Speaker 7: Yeah, she says life in the outer Islands is better.
Speaker 7: There's more space, more freedom to move around for the kids.
Speaker 2: There are things she'd like to change, of course, but
Speaker 2: mostly her concern was preserving their little piece of paradise
Speaker 2: for future generations.
Speaker 7: She'd like her kids to be able to enjoy access
Speaker 7: to clean water, whether it be through more water catchments
Speaker 7: that are being available to the family, and also the
Speaker 7: electric city as you mentioned, perhaps with the generator stuff
Speaker 7: like that to make life more easier being the outer lands.
Speaker 7: She'd like to, you know, like in the future, be
Speaker 7: able to see the fishing grounds preserved as well as
Speaker 7: the land for their farming needs.
Speaker 2: The way here works with local communities because they're from
Speaker 2: local communities, enables them to be much more effective than
Speaker 2: a nonprofit which comes from outside the community. On wrong
Speaker 2: wrong they joke to laugh at local women Whenik's husband
Speaker 2: comes from the island, so they were already welcome, and
Speaker 2: then after some time bantering, they explained the way the
Speaker 2: water filters work in marshal Leeds families. They're still a
Speaker 2: fairly gender division of labor in many cases, and it
Speaker 2: seemed to be that the women on the island were
Speaker 2: the ones who stayed to learn about the filters, so
Speaker 2: it was appropriate that it was women who were teaching them.
Speaker 2: Preservation doesn't mean they can't change. The Marshall Islands have
Speaker 2: seen a huge change in the last few years, and
Speaker 2: much of that is down to the dedicated work of
Speaker 2: a large number of women who form community groups to
Speaker 2: empower each other and address social, ecological and public health
Speaker 2: issues that are facing their communities. The umbrella organization that
Speaker 2: works with these women's groups is called whit Me. I
Speaker 2: let Maria from Whitney explain what that means and why
Speaker 2: they started the group in the first place.
Speaker 11: First of all, welcome, as you know, with ME stands
Speaker 11: for women in Needed Together marshal Allands. It also means
Speaker 11: in Marshalise your flower, and that's how we wanted the
Speaker 11: acronym to be to mean both English and Marshalise. And
Speaker 11: as it was established in nineteen eighty seven to fill
Speaker 11: a gap with respect to the advancement of women. In
Speaker 11: nineteen seventy five there was the Decade for Women Union
Speaker 11: Decade for Women, and there were two conferences that took
Speaker 11: place and there were a lot of issues that came
Speaker 11: about In those two meetings, they were dealing with domestic violence,
Speaker 11: alcohol abuse, suicide, the youth, other problems of child abuse
Speaker 11: and neglect. So from those women started to meet, at
Speaker 11: least some women started to talk about this was there
Speaker 11: were no representatives of women in the decision making bodies,
Speaker 11: whether at the local government levels or at the national level.
Speaker 11: So that's and we got the support of our traditional
Speaker 11: women leaders.
Speaker 2: Woman works alongside traditional leaders are not around them. The
Speaker 2: same was true of all the programs that have been
Speaker 2: successful on the islands. On our last day, we visited
Speaker 2: one the program that builds the canoes we heard about.
Speaker 2: Although the programs founded to preserve the cultural heritage of
Speaker 2: the islands and their unique seafaring technologies, some of which
Speaker 2: are only just being replicated in modern crafted Europe in
Speaker 2: the USA, it also responded to a need that the
Speaker 2: community had. In this case, that need was education.
Speaker 10: So we are a training program for at risk young
Speaker 10: men and women of the Martial Lands who It started
Speaker 10: out as a project back in the eighties. One of
Speaker 10: our twenty found co founder of this program. The museum
Speaker 10: contracted him to go through various islands within the Republic.
Speaker 10: And you're talking about back in the eighties and we
Speaker 10: were losing our designs fasts. People were coming to Maaguro
Speaker 10: or going to the States, which is going off islands
Speaker 10: to the many reasons, and because of that, they wanted
Speaker 10: to capture that uniqueness of these design But when he
Speaker 10: was going through from one adult to another, he noticed
Speaker 10: that there were a lot of young kids not going
Speaker 10: to school. I am sure you if you're aware of it.
Speaker 10: But throughout the republic there's only about four or five
Speaker 10: high schools, and most of them are a boarding school.
Speaker 10: So for example, I grew up in Jeluit, and in
Speaker 10: that at all there's a high school, boarding high school,
Speaker 10: and then it gators to about six or seven other islands.
Speaker 10: So parents have no choice but to send their kids.
Speaker 10: If they want to go beyond eight grade, you have
Speaker 10: to leave home and go to these boarding schools.
Speaker 2: In addition to offering a skill set and an education,
Speaker 2: the program has counselors in mental health and addiction. They
Speaker 2: teach young men and women maths, literacy, and how to
Speaker 2: build the canoes, but they also empower them in creating
Speaker 2: the sustainable alternative transport method that will be vital in
Speaker 2: building a sustainable future for their home likewise would meet
Speaker 2: the approach. It's based on listening to people.
Speaker 17: Women a chiefs you know, will let them know what
Speaker 17: we'll be doing and what what would they want us
Speaker 17: to do, and we has tom to talk with their
Speaker 17: you know, like because these women chiefs are owning some
Speaker 17: of the neighboring islands and they know their people and
Speaker 17: do need assessments so they can really understand what their
Speaker 17: needs are because all their neighboring islands are different needs.
Speaker 2: They make an effort to tie their efforts to traditional
Speaker 2: Marshalist principles and in doing so they keep their culture alive.
Speaker 11: So being together and getting this the other thing that
Speaker 11: with me as done, which is connect our our being
Speaker 11: to our culture. Being a matrilineal society, we have different
Speaker 11: sayings or traditional traditional roles of women. Yeah, and then
Speaker 11: we have our domestic balance when it's called whether in
Speaker 11: weather meaning it's a land parcel, no mean to be alive,
Speaker 11: to live and not to be killed as opposed to
Speaker 11: being abused. So what do is somewhere you go to
Speaker 11: and you're able to live freely or in a being
Speaker 11: I mean you're well protected. So in all our conferences
Speaker 11: we do use these traditionals, so that it's something that
Speaker 11: it's not new, it's traditional, so they cannot say, you know,
Speaker 11: you cannot do that because it's a tradition, and we
Speaker 11: keep the culture alive through that way as well.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone you've heard from in this series, aside from
Speaker 2: the Man, is a member of With Me or both.
Speaker 2: Kio is one of the chapters With Me and many
Speaker 2: of the leaders as the Daughters of Woodman's Leadership With Me,
Speaker 2: have implemented parent as teacher, early childhood education programs, domestic
Speaker 2: violence prevention programs, and many other social economic programs across
Speaker 2: the islands. The results are easy to see. All over
Speaker 2: the Marshall Islands, government officers and NGOs are run by women. Now,
Speaker 2: the Marshall Islands had the first woman president in the
Speaker 2: whole Pacific, and she was elected in January twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: a year when rampant misogyny was more evident than ever
Speaker 2: in the United States presidential election. Of course, many Marshal
Speaker 2: LEAs women go to the United States, and Woman's Members
Speaker 2: are no exception.
Speaker 11: One of the major challenges has been to make sure
Speaker 11: that we keep the organization intact. You guys, it's especially
Speaker 11: at present time, because there's a lot about migration that
Speaker 11: we have to constantly work, especially with women in the
Speaker 11: islands where they are. They come and then they're stay
Speaker 11: long in the urban areas, they just migrate out. So
Speaker 11: now there are so many of them that they're trying
Speaker 11: to form women's group in the in the United States
Speaker 11: as well. Seeing so so they come and visit US
Speaker 11: and we communicate with them occasionally, share and sharing information
Speaker 11: or other issues because what the issues they experienced, you know,
Speaker 11: they're also experience in the United States, and so they
Speaker 11: need to be aware of how we're trying to deal
Speaker 11: with those.
Speaker 2: But many women also go to the US for their
Speaker 2: education and then return to be part of their community
Speaker 2: and help lift their community up. Now, thanks to Whipman's
Speaker 2: hard work and the government's efforts, women don't have to
Speaker 2: leave to get these skills. The Energy Department has trained
Speaker 2: women on outer islands, for example, to fix their own
Speaker 2: power grades.
Speaker 13: Yeah, so we're kind of all over the place, and
Speaker 13: one time we went and actually uh train a community
Speaker 13: of all women, like uh, you know, we had to
Speaker 13: include men to allow women to be part of the training,
Speaker 13: and we have nine women that graduated certified trainers and
Speaker 13: we awarded them with tools and everything, so.
Speaker 10: When there's.
Speaker 13: Power outages and there's solar home systems and they can
Speaker 13: address it. And Grace who's in the middle, that that's
Speaker 13: the island where she's from, where we train the woman
Speaker 13: to become trainers, and it's our first ever. So when
Speaker 13: we found that it was successful, we try to extend
Speaker 13: it out to the other islands. So I think that's
Speaker 13: one of the reasons why it's difficult for countries such
Speaker 13: as US where we've been colonized and trying to find
Speaker 13: a balance between a modern day government form of democracy
Speaker 13: where you're taught that individualism is important and your rights
Speaker 13: are important, and then you have your traditional structure where
Speaker 13: when you're grow up, you're taught that it's a collective society.
Speaker 13: Your piety is important, respecting your thoughts are not worth it.
Speaker 13: Your elders and you know your chiefs in So I
Speaker 13: think that's where we have to find the balance.
Speaker 2: This comment that Angeline made in our chat after her
Speaker 2: excellent presentation on energy sovereignty really got me thinking about
Speaker 2: the post colonial future of the Marshall Islands. Today, they're
Speaker 2: empowered as an independent nation, but they still have to
Speaker 2: exist within a framework where corporations and more powerful governments
Speaker 2: don't have to pay for the consequences of their actions.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, the US unsealed indictment of a
Speaker 2: Chinese couple who bribe five Marshallease members of parliament and
Speaker 2: attempted to bribe a six in order to help them
Speaker 2: carve out a kind of mini state, a so called
Speaker 2: special economic zone, as a tax haven on wronga Lapatole.
Speaker 2: This is one of the places is heavily impacted by
Speaker 2: the nuclear testing we spoke about earlier. Hildehind, among others,
Speaker 2: opposed this. She said economic di element is and should
Speaker 2: be encouraged, but not at the expense of money laundering
Speaker 2: and other similarly ill activities that are usually a part
Speaker 2: of money laundering. As was obvious in the wrong l
Speaker 2: Appatol Special Administrative Region legislation, the people of wrong Glapp
Speaker 2: deserved better standards of living and economic development. While there's
Speaker 2: no evidence of CCP involvement in the scheme, it came
Speaker 2: as part of a larger panic about Beijing's influence in
Speaker 2: the region. Twenty twenty two, the Solomon Islands signed a
Speaker 2: pack with China to help improve their internal security, and
Speaker 2: China has already provided the Solomons with police training and
Speaker 2: donated replica guns and riot control equipment such as water
Speaker 2: cannon vehicles. The Solomon Islands are still covered in bombs
Speaker 2: from the US and Japan's fighting in the Pacific, but
Speaker 2: instead of helping dispose of these, this form of investment
Speaker 2: is sending more weapons to the government, not help to
Speaker 2: the people there. According to a recent published study in
Speaker 2: the journal Science, the world's corporations produce so much climate
Speaker 2: change causing pollution that it would eat up forty four
Speaker 2: percent of their so they had to pay damages for
Speaker 2: the impact of their activity. Your reusable straw might help,
Speaker 2: and it's good that you're using it, But until the
Speaker 2: world and giant corporations especially listen to the voices of
Speaker 2: people impacted by our choices, things won't change. I want
Speaker 2: to end by talking about the future of the Marshall
Speaker 2: Islands and how Marshallysee people are determining that in the
Speaker 2: last century they've been let down by the League of
Speaker 2: Nations who reallocated the islands to the Japanese under Southeast Mandate,
Speaker 2: then let down by the US and the UN after
Speaker 2: the war, and They're still being let down by international
Speaker 2: institutions today when their demands for climate fairless are ignored,
Speaker 2: But this doesn't mean they can't benefit from international solidarity.
Speaker 2: It was American made water filters and a significant donation
Speaker 2: from a company better known for hiking that helped every
Speaker 2: single person in the Marshall Islands get clean water. It
Speaker 2: was Greenpeace who relocated people when the US government wouldn't,
Speaker 2: And it was Marshally's women who took week long Norse
Speaker 2: or induced boat rides across dangerous seas to distribute those
Speaker 2: water filters that save lives in places where there's less
Speaker 2: access to care. With access to the right resources and
Speaker 2: international solidarity and good will, the possibilities for the Marshall
Speaker 2: Islands seem endless. They've endured World War, survived the dropping
Speaker 2: of the atom bond, and they're adapting to climate change
Speaker 2: by centering community and their obligations to each other rather
Speaker 2: than trying to each take what they can and get out.
Speaker 2: With access to clean water and homes free of smoke,
Speaker 2: their children will be healthier, and every child I met
Speaker 2: on the island seem to have bright hopes for the future.
Speaker 2: I met one kid who wanted to be a basketball player,
Speaker 2: and another who aspired to apparently be as tall as
Speaker 2: I am. People in the Islands don't focus on their past,
Speaker 2: but on their future, and with a little solidarity and
Speaker 2: decency from the rest of the world, they have a
Speaker 2: very bright one. I want to finish this series with
Speaker 2: the explanation we got from Whitney of the Marshal Lely's flag.
Speaker 2: It's a great flag, by the way, and you should
Speaker 2: look it up if you haven't seen it. It's one
Speaker 2: of the most common flags of convenience for merchant vessels
Speaker 2: all over the world. I've seen it in several continents
Speaker 2: but never really knew what it meant. At least for now,
Speaker 2: it seemed to mean that these tiny islands, which have
Speaker 2: been through so much still have great hopes for the future.
Speaker 11: The Marshalist flag there's two the orange and the white right,
Speaker 11: and there they represented the relic chain and the Radit chain,
Speaker 11: the sunrise chain of island and the sensor chain of
Speaker 11: violent which formed the Marshal Land. So those two lines,
Speaker 11: but those lines there's one orange and one weight. Orange
Speaker 11: is for courage, it's called cleo and and the white
Speaker 11: is for peace. So but these lines are not parallel.
Speaker 11: I mean they become larger as they move up, and
Speaker 11: they don't start from the corner. They start from a
Speaker 11: little bit over the corner of the flag, meaning that
Speaker 11: we have a past. We didn't start from the beginning
Speaker 11: when we started this new government in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 11: And then you have the moves out. It doesn't go
Speaker 11: all the way to the corner at the top because
Speaker 11: we're always growing. There's so you know, we're always growing.
Speaker 11: We need to grow. It's very important.
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