September 8, 2023 • 34 mins
In the final episode of the series James looks at how Marshallese women's group Kora In Okrane have ensured access to clean water for every single resident of the country, and how the Marshallese community has come together to overcome the challenges of climate change, the nuclear legacy, and a safe home environment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This for all you guys, so you get there.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Twice In the week I spent on Marjoro, I didn't
get to sleep until after midnight because the hotel's event
space was about eight feet from my pillow, and someone
in that event space was having an absolute rago. Before
trying and failing to go to sleep, I chatter with
some folks who were at the party to see what
was going on. The first night was a first birthday party.
Infant mortality has been so high in this area in
(00:41):
the past that children making it through the first year
of their life was a cause for massive celebration. It
was rather sweet to see adults enjoying such a good
time around a one year old who had no idea
what was going on. The next party a few days
later was no less festive, but for a much more
somber reason. It was a celebration to an eight year
old girl who died exactly one year before. People showed
(01:04):
me her photo, and despite my condolences, they assured me
that it wasn't a sad affair. I don't want to
make this series a sad affair either, because despite the
incredible challenges they have faced, Marshally's people have persevered, and
they clearly have a great pride in their islands, and
I don't think they would want to be seen as
helpless and acted upon by global forces beyond their control. Instead,
(01:24):
they should be seen as a strong community that has
withstood some of the worst things a history can thriller
community and continue to thrive. As we spoke about yesterday,
they're taking huge steps to ensure that they lead the
way on sustainable development. They're also ensuring their future in
other ways. Some of those might not be as shiny
and glitzy as solar power grids or canoes powered by
(01:45):
the sun, but which have made a huge difference to
the residence of the country, particularly in the outer atolls.
What I want to talk about today is one of
those projects. It's a project imagined, implemented, and executed by
the women of Quarter in the name means women who
rise at dawn, and it's very appropriate every interview you've
(02:06):
heard so far and every place we went to thanks
to the women of Kio. The trip I was part
of was there to witness the installation of the final
water filters on the island of Wrong Room that will
bring to a successful conclusion a five year project to
ensure that every single person in the Marshall Islands had
access to clean water. I'll let them introduce themselves to
you as it did to us.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
My name is Francine wasase Jacklick, but most people around
town called me, so if you hear Francine, they're not
going to go today. I am a queu member. I'm
one of the officers as the secretary, and I've been
a queue member of GOSH. I can't remember when, but
(02:48):
you know we've got we've come along when he is
about seventeen years old right now?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Wow, seventeen.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, it's been a very.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Fun road.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's my fun job outside from Q. As my fun work,
I work at the Ministry of Health and Human Services.
My permanent position is the Deputy Secretary overseeing Office of
Health Planning, Policy, Preparedness, Personnel and epidem analogy. And three
(03:20):
months ago I was also given the authority rule as
the acting Secretary of Health because the Secretary was not
the nude politics. So yeah, Q is q Corina Rani
and we're very happy because our founder is here and
(03:44):
it's money. So we'll do introduction and then we'll go
into the agenda.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
Is that okay, okay, so I will hand it to
the bag, which is our founder money.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Somebody go ahead, ill everyone.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Hi, how come I money? I am the com there
you actually not. We're really happy that you've made it.
You know, your flight wasn't canceled last week. So many
flights are canceled, so were so but welcome.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
In our language, we say yah yeah means rainbow and
quays you.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So you are a rainbow to us.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
I am a mother for now.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I don't I don't work.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Most of us have their work, but I'm a full
time mother and this is my baby. Actually, Kiyo started
sixteen years ago. Myself and a friend.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
We were in school in the East Coast and we
graduated and we all came back and you know, we
were raised with this mentality to give back.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
We have lots of Marshallese proverbs and you what bio means.
Speaker 7 (05:12):
To turn the tides.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So it was our time to turn the tides.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
So we bended together always like mind name smart Ladies
and created Q And it's a volunteer organization.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
We do this in our sleep.
Speaker 8 (05:29):
Basically all volunteer, yes.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So we do various work from small projects like you know,
reading with the kids and just big projects like water.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
It's water culture project.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
My name is Kathleen.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
I work for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Commerce
with the fisheries Memora and I've been in film members
and it's.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Of course year sixteen years ago and it is like
moving said, it's it's an honor and we are very
humble when visited.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
A welcome you all and hope we have a great visit.
Thank you, Okay, names all. Yeah, but my name is Samantha.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
I work at the Munistrial Fight Access as an accountant
and I'm cure of treasure.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Thank you, thank.
Speaker 11 (06:36):
Me, Yeah, why everyone, and welcome to our shore. My
name is Graised, but everyone call me Kuma. So I'm
very pleased to meet all of you. When they say
we have uh all these media, you know, big news media,
I would let come.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We probably say that I was kind of nervous.
Speaker 12 (06:59):
But anyways, I've been a to remembers since twenty fourteen
and I was sol amized by all the work that
these ladies have been doing for the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 11 (07:10):
And I'm there probably be part of quet club. I
work at Romola at all Local Government and I'm not
sure you know, but Ronav is one of those. It's
all that was affected by the nuclear testing.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So again welcome here. Work with Sawyer, the people who
make the Ubiquitous water filter, which is a favorite for
through hikers and other outdoors people, to provide a water
filtration system that allows Marshal's people to filter the rain
water they collect and remove harmful bacteria that can cause
diarrhea and vomiting. Well, these might seem undesirables listeners in
(07:45):
the US, they can be fatal in other settings. Twenty nineteen,
around one point five million people died from diarrheal diseases.
That's more than all violent deaths combined. Around half a
million of those deaths were children. One thing that's remarkable
about the project is a way it was realized. KEO
began distribution in the most remote and hard to reach
(08:07):
the tolls, taking tiny boats across choppy seas for days
at a time to get to remote islands, and then
working with traditional women leaders to ensure that everyone on
the islands knew how to use the filters. Then they
began working towards Marjora the capitol. I've seen lots of
ENDO projects in dozens of countries. I've worked with someone,
but I've rarely seen a model that prioritizes need this well.
(08:31):
In far too many cases, proximity to power ensures access
to resources. This is a global problem. Just look at
how the US distributed masks and COVID resources to reservations last.
Or if I step outside, they can see how the
lowest income parts of San Diego, the city I live in,
have the worst roads and get the least infrastructure spending.
(08:51):
The fact that KYO do things differently is a testament
to the strength of their commitment to their community. In fact,
the project finished distribution during my trip to Marshall Islands,
completing the last island on madro Atoll in early July,
but a few days later than that, when QO invited
myself and some other journalists to a goodbye breakfast, they
presented a filter to the former president of the Republic
(09:13):
of Marshall Islands, Hilde Hind, Despite being the last person
to get one. She was very grateful and it served
as a great illustration of the priorities of the group.
They wanted to go to the hardest places first because
they knew people then needed help the most. His president
hilde Heine after receiving her filter.
Speaker 8 (09:31):
I was telling Monique that we don't drink from our
tab water hours we have our own system, or we
don't know if it's clean, so we buy our drinking
water all the time. So with this one I probably
will stop bang for to make pure water.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I joined Kio and several other journalists for the final
leg of their project, which involves installing the water filters.
This doesn't really take long. They're basically a soil filter
attached to a five gallon bucket with a length of
flexible hose, and then explaining their value and upkeep to
the community. As we heard yesterday, ground water is harder
and harder to come by in the Marshall Islands thanks
(10:14):
to climate change, and so people rely almost exclusively on rainwater.
They collect rainwater in giant plastic tanks. They've only recently
replaced a hodgepodge of different collection vessels. Incidentally, a visiting
scientist from a CDC told me that the installation of
these tanks has increased a safe disposal of waste because
people no longer need to take their bins to collect
rainwater when it rains. Once water is in the tanks.
(10:38):
The residents can draw it out into their five gallon
bucket and then filter it for safe drinking. The soil
filter system may seem very simple, and it is, but
that's what makes it a perfect solution here. A complicated
electric filter, or one that relied on pipe water pressure
or had a ton of moving parts would require constant maintenance,
which is hard given a long journey to the Outer Islands.
(11:00):
In my career in journalism and in nonprofit, I've seen
countless well intentioned aid projects completely failed to consider the
need for sustainability and become useless odities in a few years.
Cargo bikes made a huge different coffee farmers in Rwanda
until they needed new brake pads and there wasn't an
importer for them. The same goes for countless glucometers i've
(11:20):
seen distributed to people who can't access the batteries they
use or the test trips they rely on. This won't
happen in the Marshall Islands in part because the project
was led by the community itself and not by outside
nonprofits looking to maximize donation dollars or media opportunities, and
in part because the only maintenance or sort of filter
needs is a backflush of the filtered water that it makes.
(11:42):
Yesterday we had a little from the Marshal Lee's Environmental
Protection Agency about how they grapple with climate change. Today,
I want to explain how they're working alongside Kio to
ensure that even as sea levels rise, Marshal's people will
have access to safe water. The Marshal Lease EPA works
to ensure that the water in people's tanks isn't contaminated,
(12:02):
and the filters that KIA provided work to make sure
that even if it is, people won't get sick. They
often travel to the outer islons together to reduce the
cost sharing a small boat. It's a rare example of
a nonprofit in the government working together without competing or
doing the same thing twice. At first, Marianna explained, people
weren't sure that such a tiny filter could make such
(12:24):
a big difference, so KIA worked with the EPA to
use a visual test for microbial activity to show people
how effective it was. He She is explaining how the
EPA helped KIO build trust in the efficacy of the
soil filters.
Speaker 13 (12:37):
When Sires and Kio approached us with the filters before
that a lot of people were already asking us, so,
can we can we trust this, you know, can you
do a test in your lab to tell us and
confirm that this is, you know, as good as the claim.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
It to be.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Doing the test allowed the e PA to help ko
get greater uptake for their filters and allowed Kio to
help the EPA achieve one of its mandated goals.
Speaker 13 (13:10):
And so when we produced these very visual like Quanta
Quanta or Quanti trays, the the experts will.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Get into it.
Speaker 13 (13:21):
But when we produce them and show a visual contrast
between the water before the filter and then the water
before the after the filter filtration, it was you know, amazing,
like it's it's so clean.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And you know, we we.
Speaker 13 (13:44):
Make decisions based on science, and that science right there,
and so we use that visual photograph outside of that
that that meeting to show people, you know, we're not
going to get in to the microbils of whatever. This
is the difference the water before the filter and then after.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And so.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
We're just really happy that Kiyo was able to include us.
Speaker 13 (14:16):
This is one of our mandates, but we're never resourced
that way to do all of the things that we
want to do.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
To address water quality issues.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Of course, it's impossible to deal with the water issue
in isolation. Everything in the Marshall Islands are really anywhere
elsewhere you're paying attention has to take into account the
impact of climate change and how communities are going to
survive when faced with an increasingly hostile home planet. No
yan't explained how access to clean water helps make the
community in the Marshall Islands even more resilient.
Speaker 13 (14:49):
Well, if you're trying to survive, the last thing you
want to worry about is an outbreak of diarrhea or apatitis.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Or you know, water born diseases.
Speaker 13 (15:02):
That are preventable, and so clean water, you know you're
much much more better as a community if you can
thrive and.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
On clean water. It's as simple as that water is life.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
One night during my trip to the Marshall Islands, I
was able to join Kia for a dinner that celebrated
the completion of their water project, meaning that everyone in
the Marshall Islands had access to water that won't make
them sick. To get a better sense of what this
really means, I wanted to talk to some families who
had received those filters and to see what the clean
water access meant to them. We've all heard that water
(15:58):
is life, and that was a slogan news for Kio's project,
But it's difficult to appreciate that if you live in
a place where you can just turn on a tap
and have access to clean, safe water whenever you want.
When Kio made their posters for that dinner, they included
a photo of a little girl on Arno Island who'd
been one of the first to receive their filters, happily
drinking from a jar of clean water. That was back
(16:20):
in twenty eighteen. Since then, they thought they'd heard the
terrible news that she died, but just before the dinner
they found out she hadn't, and so they invited her
to join the celebration. I was able to sit down
with her, her mother, and other recipients of the filters
for a quick interview via translator. On the tiny island
of Boken voter.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
Al So, they never filtered the water before. They would
drink straight from the water wells or the water catchments.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Sometimes, she said, people would get sick. We also spoke
to Aneiti, a resident of Wrong Wrong on the day
that she got her filter. Frontine helped translate her responses.
Speaker 14 (17:01):
Yanity, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Okay, But she had heard about that there was going
to be filters coming to the island. When she first heard,
she thought the filters were going to go directly to
the water tanks. And now that it's more accessible, it's
like she saw this bucket. She's happy. It's better. It's better.
Speaker 15 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Recently there have been an outbreak of diary around the atoll,
so this was a welcome relief.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So she had heard that there was optic of cases
in major the capital, and when she had first learned
about her she was scared and worried. But to hear
that there's folks coming here to the island to check
(17:57):
on the water, it made them feel a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You addings the family from Ana who travel a long
way on a small boat to meet us, we're looking
forward to getting back to their home. Life on the
outer a tolls isn't easy, but it's not one they
want to walk away from. With the threat of climate
change already putting their home in peril, having access to
clean water must be a welcome relief. I asked to say,
(18:21):
preferred life here on the capitol A toll or back home.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
Yeah, she says life in the outer Islands is better.
There's more space, more freedom to move around for the kids.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
There are things she'd like to change, of course, but
mostly her concern was preserving their little piece of paradise
for future generations.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
She'd like her kids to be able to enjoy access
to clean water, whether it be through more water catchments
that are being available to the family, and also the
electric city as you mentioned, perhaps with the generator stuff
(19:04):
like that to make life more easier. Being the outer Lands.
She'd like to, you know, like in the future be
able to see the fishing grounds preserved as well as
the land for their farming needs.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The way here works with local communities because they're from
local communities, enables them to be much more effective than
a nonprofit which comes from outside the community. On wrong
wrong they joke to laugh at local women Whenik's husband
comes from the island, so they were already welcome, and
then after some time bantering, they explained the way the
water filters work in marshal Leeds families. They're still a
(19:46):
fairly gender division of labor in many cases, and it
seemed to be that the women on the island were
the ones who stayed to learn about the filters, so
it was appropriate that it was women who were teaching them.
Preservation doesn't mean they can't change. The Marshall Islands have
seen a huge change in the last few years, and
much of that is down to the dedicated work of
(20:06):
a large number of women who form community groups to
empower each other and address social, ecological and public health
issues that are facing their communities. The umbrella organization that
works with these women's groups is called whit Me. I
let Maria from Whitney explain what that means and why
they started the group in the first place.
Speaker 10 (20:24):
First of all, welcome, as you know, with ME stands
for women in ed together marshal Allands. It also means
in Marshalise your flower, and that's how we wanted the
acronym to be to mean both English and Marshalise. And
as it was established in nineteen eighty seven to fill
(20:46):
a gap with respect to the advancement of women. In
nineteen seventy five there was the Decade for Women Union
Decade for Women, and there were two conferences that took
place and there were a lot of issues that came
about in those two meetings. They were dealing with domestic violence,
(21:10):
alcohol abuse, suicide, the youth, other problems of child abuse
and neglect. So from those women started to meet, at
least some women started to talk about this was there
were no representatives of women in the decision making bodies,
(21:31):
whether at the local government levels or at the national level.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So that's.
Speaker 10 (21:40):
And we got the support of our traditional women leaders.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Woman works alongside traditional leaders are not around them. The
same was true of all the programs that have been
successful on the islands. On our last day, we visited
one the program that builds the canoes. We heard about.
Although the programs founded to preserve the cultural heritage of
the islands and their unique seafaring technologies, some of which
are only just being replicated in modern crafted Europe in
(22:05):
the USA, it also responded to a need that the
community had. In this case, that need was education.
Speaker 16 (22:12):
So we are a training program for at risk young
men and women of the Martial Lands who It started
out as a project back in the eighties. One of
our twenty found co founder of this program. The museum
contracted him to go through various islands within the Republic.
(22:32):
And you're talking about back in the eighties, and we
were losing our designs fasts. People were coming to Maaguro
or going to the States, which is going off islands
to the many reasons, and because of that, they wanted
to capture that uniqueness of these design But when he
was going through from one adult to another, he noticed
(22:55):
that there were a lot of young kids not going
to school. I'm sure you if you're aware of it,
But throughout the Republic there's only about four or five
ice schools, and most of them are a boarding school. So,
for example, I grew up in Jeluit, and in that
at all there's a high school, boarding high school, and
(23:18):
then it gators to about six or seven other islands.
So parents have no choice but to send their kids.
If they want to go beyond eight grade, you have
to leave home and go to the boarding schools.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
In addition to offering a skill set and an education,
the program has counselors in mental health and addiction. They
teach young men and women maths, literacy, and how to
build the canoes, but they also empower them in creating
the sustainable alternative transport method that will be vital in
building a sustainable future for their home. Likewise, would meet.
The approach. It's based on listening to people.
Speaker 14 (23:53):
Women a chiefs you know, will let them know what
we'll be doing and what what would they want us
to do, and we has to to talk with their
you know, like because these women chiefs are owning some
of the neighboring islands and they know their people and
do need assessments so they can really understand what their
needs are because all the neighboring islands are different needs.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
They make an effort to tie their efforts to traditional
Marshalist principles and in doing so they keep their culture alive.
Speaker 10 (24:21):
So being together and getting this the other thing that
with me as done, which is connect our our being
to our culture. Being a matrilineal society, we have different
sayings or traditional traditional roles of women. Yeah, and then
(24:42):
we have our domestic balance when it's called whether in
weather meaning it's a land parcel, no mean to be alive,
to live and not to be killed as opposed to
being abused. So what do is somewhere you go to
(25:02):
and you're able to live freely or in a being
I mean you're well protected. So in all our conferences
we do use these traditionals so that it's something that
it's not new, it's traditional, so they cannot say, you know,
you cannot do that because it's a tradition, and we
(25:22):
keep the culture alive through that way as well.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Almost everyone you've heard from in this series, aside from
the Man, is a member of With Me or both.
Kio is one of the chapters With Me, and many
of the leaders as the daughters of Woodman's Leadership With Me,
have implemented parent as teacher, early childhood education programs, domestic
violence prevention programs, and many other social economic programs across
(26:01):
the islands. The results are easy to see. All over
the Marshall Islands, government officers and NGOs are run by women. Now,
the Marshall Islands had the first woman president in the
whole Pacific, and she was elected in January twenty sixteen,
a year when rampant misogyny was more evident than ever
in the United States presidential election. Of course, many Marshal
(26:22):
LEAs women go to the United States, and Woman's Members
are no exception.
Speaker 10 (26:26):
One of the major challenges has been to make sure
that we keep the organization intact. You guys, It's especially
at present time because there's a lot about migration that
we have to constantly work, especially with women in the
islands where they are. They come and then they'll stay
(26:47):
long in the urban areas, they just migrate out. So
now there are so many of them that they're trying
to form women's group in the.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
In the United States as well.
Speaker 10 (26:59):
Seeing so so they come and visit us and we
communicate with them occasionally, share and sharing information or other
issues because what the issues they experienced, you know, they're
also experience in the United States, and so they need
to be aware of how we're trying to deal with those.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But many women also go to the US for their
education and then return to be part of their community
and help lift their community up. Now, thanks to Whipman's
hard work and the government's efforts, women don't have to
leave to get these skills. The Energy Department has trained
women on outer islands, for example, to fix their own
power grades.
Speaker 17 (27:41):
Yeah, so we're kind of all over the place. And
one time we went and actually uh train a community
of all women, like uh, you know, we had to
include men to allow women to be part of the training.
And we have nine women that graduated certified trainers and
(28:06):
we awarded them with tools and everything, so when there's
power outages and there's solar home systems and they can
address it. And Grace who's in the middle, that that's
the island where she's from, where we train the woman
to become trainers, and it's our first ever. So when
(28:27):
we found that it was successful, we try to extend
it out to the other islands. So I think that's
one of the reasons why it's difficult for countries such
as US where we've been colonized and trying to find
a balance between a modern day government form of democracy
where you're taught that individualism is important and your rights
(28:51):
are important, and then you have your traditional structure where
when you're grow up you're taught that it's a collective society.
Your piety is important, respecting your thoughts are not worth it,
your elders and you know your chiefs in So I
(29:13):
think that's where we have to find the balance.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
This comment that Angeline made in our chat after her
excellent presentation on energy sovereignty really got me thinking about
the post colonial future of the Marshall Islands. Today, they're
empowered as an independent nation, but they still have to
exist within a framework where corporations and more powerful governments
don't have to pay for the consequences of their actions.
In twenty twenty two, the US unsealed indictment of a
(29:38):
Chinese couple who bribe five Marshal Lease members of parliament
and attempted to bribe a six in order to help
them carve out a kind of mini state, a so
called special economic zone as a tax haven or wronga lapatole.
This is one of the places heavily impacted by the
nuclear testing we spoke about earlier. Hildehind, among others, opposed this.
She said economic di element is and should be encouraged,
(30:01):
but not at the expense of money laundering and other
similarly ill activities that are usually a part of money laundering.
As was obvious in the wrong l Appatol Special Administrative
Region legislation, the people of wrong Glapp deserved better standards
of living and economic development. Well, there's no evidence of
CCP involvement in the scheme. It came as part of
(30:22):
a larger panic about Beijing's influence in the region. Twenty
twenty two, the Solomon Islands signed a pack with China
to help improve their internal security, and China has already
provided the Solomons with police training and donated replica guns
and riot control equipment such as water cannon vehicles. The
Solomon Islands are still covered in bombs from the US
and Japan's fighting in the Pacific, but instead of helping
(30:45):
dispose of these, this form of investment is sending more
weapons to the government, not help to the people there.
According to a recent published study in the journal Science,
the world's corporations produce so much climate change causing pollution
that it would eat up forty four percent of their
so they had to pay damages for the impact of
their activity. Your reusable straw might help, and it's good
(31:06):
that you're using it, But until the world and giant
corporations especially listen to the voices of people impacted by
our choices, things won't change. I want to end by
talking about the future of the Marshall Islands and how
Marshallysee people are determining that in the last century they've
been let down by the League of Nations who reallocated
(31:26):
the islands to the Japanese under Southeast Mandate, then let
down by the US and the UN after the war,
and they're still being let down by international institutions today
when their demands for climate fairless are ignored. But this
doesn't mean they can't benefit from international solidarity. It was
American made water filters and a significant donation from a
(31:47):
company better known for hiking that helped every single person
in the Marshall Islands get clean water. It was Greenpeace
who relocated people when the US government wouldn't, And it
was Marshally's women who took week long Norse or induced
boat rides across dangerous seas to distribute those water filters
that save lives in places where there's less access to care.
(32:07):
With access to the right resources and international solidarity and
good will, the possibilities for the Marshall Islands seem endless.
They've endured World War, survived the dropping of the atom bond,
and they're adapting to climate change by centering community and
their obligations to each other rather than trying to each
take what they can and get out. With access to
(32:27):
clean water and homes free of smoke, their children will
be healthier, and every child I met on the island
seem to have bright hopes for the future. I met
one kid who wanted to be a basketball player and
another who aspired to apparently be as tall as I am.
People in the Islands don't focus on their past, but
on their future, and with a little solidarity and decency
from the rest of the world, they have a very
(32:49):
bright one. I want to finish this series with the
explanation we got from Whitney of the Marshal Lely's flag.
It's a great flag, by the way, and you should
look it up if you haven't seen it. It's one
of the most common flags of convenience for merchant vessels
all over the world. I've seen it in several continents
but never really knew what it meant. At least for now,
it seemed to mean that these tiny islands, which have
(33:10):
been through so much still have great hopes for the future.
Speaker 10 (33:14):
The Marshalist flag there's two the orange and the white right,
and there they represented the relic chain and the Radit chain,
the sunrise chain of island and the sensor chain of
violent which formed the Marshal Land. So those two lines.
But those lines there's one orange and one weight. Orange
(33:37):
is for courage, it's called Cleo, and the white is
for peace. So but these lines are not parallel.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I mean they.
Speaker 10 (33:52):
Become larger as they move up, and they don't start
from the corner. They start from a little bit over
the corner of the flag, meaning that we have a past.
We didn't start from the beginning when we started this
new government in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And then you have the moves out.
Speaker 10 (34:11):
It doesn't go all the way to the corner at
the top, because we're always growing. There's so you know,
we're always growing.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
We need to grow. It's very important.
Speaker 15 (34:26):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
This for all you guys, so you get there.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Twice In the week I spent on Marjoro, I didn't
get to sleep until after midnight because the hotel's event
space was about eight feet from my pillow, and someone
in that event space was having an absolute rago. Before
trying and failing to go to sleep, I chatter with
some folks who were at the party to see what
was going on. The first night was a first birthday party.
Infant mortality has been so high in this area in
(00:41):
the past that children making it through the first year
of their life was a cause for massive celebration. It
was rather sweet to see adults enjoying such a good
time around a one year old who had no idea
what was going on. The next party a few days
later was no less festive, but for a much more
somber reason. It was a celebration to an eight year
old girl who died exactly one year before. People showed
(01:04):
me her photo, and despite my condolences, they assured me
that it wasn't a sad affair. I don't want to
make this series a sad affair either, because despite the
incredible challenges they have faced, Marshally's people have persevered, and
they clearly have a great pride in their islands, and
I don't think they would want to be seen as
helpless and acted upon by global forces beyond their control. Instead,
(01:24):
they should be seen as a strong community that has
withstood some of the worst things a history can thriller
community and continue to thrive. As we spoke about yesterday,
they're taking huge steps to ensure that they lead the
way on sustainable development. They're also ensuring their future in
other ways. Some of those might not be as shiny
and glitzy as solar power grids or canoes powered by
(01:45):
the sun, but which have made a huge difference to
the residence of the country, particularly in the outer atolls.
What I want to talk about today is one of
those projects. It's a project imagined, implemented, and executed by
the women of Quarter in the name means women who
rise at dawn, and it's very appropriate every interview you've
(02:06):
heard so far and every place we went to thanks
to the women of Kio. The trip I was part
of was there to witness the installation of the final
water filters on the island of Wrong Room that will
bring to a successful conclusion a five year project to
ensure that every single person in the Marshall Islands had
access to clean water. I'll let them introduce themselves to
you as it did to us.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
My name is Francine wasase Jacklick, but most people around
town called me, so if you hear Francine, they're not
going to go today. I am a queu member. I'm
one of the officers as the secretary, and I've been
a queue member of GOSH. I can't remember when, but
(02:48):
you know we've got we've come along when he is
about seventeen years old right now?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Wow, seventeen.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, it's been a very.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Fun road.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's my fun job outside from Q. As my fun work,
I work at the Ministry of Health and Human Services.
My permanent position is the Deputy Secretary overseeing Office of
Health Planning, Policy, Preparedness, Personnel and epidem analogy. And three
(03:20):
months ago I was also given the authority rule as
the acting Secretary of Health because the Secretary was not
the nude politics. So yeah, Q is q Corina Rani
and we're very happy because our founder is here and
(03:44):
it's money. So we'll do introduction and then we'll go
into the agenda.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
Is that okay, okay, so I will hand it to
the bag, which is our founder money.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Somebody go ahead, ill everyone.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Hi, how come I money? I am the com there
you actually not. We're really happy that you've made it.
You know, your flight wasn't canceled last week. So many
flights are canceled, so were so but welcome.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
In our language, we say yah yeah means rainbow and
quays you.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So you are a rainbow to us.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
I am a mother for now.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I don't I don't work.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Most of us have their work, but I'm a full
time mother and this is my baby. Actually, Kiyo started
sixteen years ago. Myself and a friend.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
We were in school in the East Coast and we
graduated and we all came back and you know, we
were raised with this mentality to give back.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
We have lots of Marshallese proverbs and you what bio means.
Speaker 7 (05:12):
To turn the tides.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So it was our time to turn the tides.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
So we bended together always like mind name smart Ladies
and created Q And it's a volunteer organization.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
We do this in our sleep.
Speaker 8 (05:29):
Basically all volunteer, yes.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
So we do various work from small projects like you know,
reading with the kids and just big projects like water.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
It's water culture project.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
My name is Kathleen.
Speaker 6 (05:49):
I work for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Commerce
with the fisheries Memora and I've been in film members
and it's.
Speaker 9 (06:02):
Of course year sixteen years ago and it is like
moving said, it's it's an honor and we are very
humble when visited.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
A welcome you all and hope we have a great visit.
Thank you, Okay, names all. Yeah, but my name is Samantha.
Speaker 10 (06:27):
I work at the Munistrial Fight Access as an accountant
and I'm cure of treasure.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Thank you, thank.
Speaker 11 (06:36):
Me, Yeah, why everyone, and welcome to our shore. My
name is Graised, but everyone call me Kuma. So I'm
very pleased to meet all of you. When they say
we have uh all these media, you know, big news media,
I would let come.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
We probably say that I was kind of nervous.
Speaker 12 (06:59):
But anyways, I've been a to remembers since twenty fourteen
and I was sol amized by all the work that
these ladies have been doing for the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 11 (07:10):
And I'm there probably be part of quet club. I
work at Romola at all Local Government and I'm not
sure you know, but Ronav is one of those. It's
all that was affected by the nuclear testing.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So again welcome here. Work with Sawyer, the people who
make the Ubiquitous water filter, which is a favorite for
through hikers and other outdoors people, to provide a water
filtration system that allows Marshal's people to filter the rain
water they collect and remove harmful bacteria that can cause
diarrhea and vomiting. Well, these might seem undesirables listeners in
(07:45):
the US, they can be fatal in other settings. Twenty nineteen,
around one point five million people died from diarrheal diseases.
That's more than all violent deaths combined. Around half a
million of those deaths were children. One thing that's remarkable
about the project is a way it was realized. KEO
began distribution in the most remote and hard to reach
(08:07):
the tolls, taking tiny boats across choppy seas for days
at a time to get to remote islands, and then
working with traditional women leaders to ensure that everyone on
the islands knew how to use the filters. Then they
began working towards Marjora the capitol. I've seen lots of
ENDO projects in dozens of countries. I've worked with someone,
but I've rarely seen a model that prioritizes need this well.
(08:31):
In far too many cases, proximity to power ensures access
to resources. This is a global problem. Just look at
how the US distributed masks and COVID resources to reservations last.
Or if I step outside, they can see how the
lowest income parts of San Diego, the city I live in,
have the worst roads and get the least infrastructure spending.
(08:51):
The fact that KYO do things differently is a testament
to the strength of their commitment to their community. In fact,
the project finished distribution during my trip to Marshall Islands,
completing the last island on madro Atoll in early July,
but a few days later than that, when QO invited
myself and some other journalists to a goodbye breakfast, they
presented a filter to the former president of the Republic
(09:13):
of Marshall Islands, Hilde Hind, Despite being the last person
to get one. She was very grateful and it served
as a great illustration of the priorities of the group.
They wanted to go to the hardest places first because
they knew people then needed help the most. His president
hilde Heine after receiving her filter.
Speaker 8 (09:31):
I was telling Monique that we don't drink from our
tab water hours we have our own system, or we
don't know if it's clean, so we buy our drinking
water all the time. So with this one I probably
will stop bang for to make pure water.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I joined Kio and several other journalists for the final
leg of their project, which involves installing the water filters.
This doesn't really take long. They're basically a soil filter
attached to a five gallon bucket with a length of
flexible hose, and then explaining their value and upkeep to
the community. As we heard yesterday, ground water is harder
and harder to come by in the Marshall Islands thanks
(10:14):
to climate change, and so people rely almost exclusively on rainwater.
They collect rainwater in giant plastic tanks. They've only recently
replaced a hodgepodge of different collection vessels. Incidentally, a visiting
scientist from a CDC told me that the installation of
these tanks has increased a safe disposal of waste because
people no longer need to take their bins to collect
rainwater when it rains. Once water is in the tanks.
(10:38):
The residents can draw it out into their five gallon
bucket and then filter it for safe drinking. The soil
filter system may seem very simple, and it is, but
that's what makes it a perfect solution here. A complicated
electric filter, or one that relied on pipe water pressure
or had a ton of moving parts would require constant maintenance,
which is hard given a long journey to the Outer Islands.
(11:00):
In my career in journalism and in nonprofit, I've seen
countless well intentioned aid projects completely failed to consider the
need for sustainability and become useless odities in a few years.
Cargo bikes made a huge different coffee farmers in Rwanda
until they needed new brake pads and there wasn't an
importer for them. The same goes for countless glucometers i've
(11:20):
seen distributed to people who can't access the batteries they
use or the test trips they rely on. This won't
happen in the Marshall Islands in part because the project
was led by the community itself and not by outside
nonprofits looking to maximize donation dollars or media opportunities, and
in part because the only maintenance or sort of filter
needs is a backflush of the filtered water that it makes.
(11:42):
Yesterday we had a little from the Marshal Lee's Environmental
Protection Agency about how they grapple with climate change. Today,
I want to explain how they're working alongside Kio to
ensure that even as sea levels rise, Marshal's people will
have access to safe water. The Marshal Lease EPA works
to ensure that the water in people's tanks isn't contaminated,
(12:02):
and the filters that KIA provided work to make sure
that even if it is, people won't get sick. They
often travel to the outer islons together to reduce the
cost sharing a small boat. It's a rare example of
a nonprofit in the government working together without competing or
doing the same thing twice. At first, Marianna explained, people
weren't sure that such a tiny filter could make such
(12:24):
a big difference, so KIA worked with the EPA to
use a visual test for microbial activity to show people
how effective it was. He She is explaining how the
EPA helped KIO build trust in the efficacy of the
soil filters.
Speaker 13 (12:37):
When Sires and Kio approached us with the filters before
that a lot of people were already asking us, so,
can we can we trust this, you know, can you
do a test in your lab to tell us and
confirm that this is, you know, as good as the claim.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
It to be.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Doing the test allowed the e PA to help ko
get greater uptake for their filters and allowed Kio to
help the EPA achieve one of its mandated goals.
Speaker 13 (13:10):
And so when we produced these very visual like Quanta
Quanta or Quanti trays, the the experts will.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Get into it.
Speaker 13 (13:21):
But when we produce them and show a visual contrast
between the water before the filter and then the water
before the after the filter filtration, it was you know, amazing,
like it's it's so clean.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And you know, we we.
Speaker 13 (13:44):
Make decisions based on science, and that science right there,
and so we use that visual photograph outside of that
that that meeting to show people, you know, we're not
going to get in to the microbils of whatever. This
is the difference the water before the filter and then after.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
And so.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
We're just really happy that Kiyo was able to include us.
Speaker 13 (14:16):
This is one of our mandates, but we're never resourced
that way to do all of the things that we
want to do.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
To address water quality issues.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Of course, it's impossible to deal with the water issue
in isolation. Everything in the Marshall Islands are really anywhere
elsewhere you're paying attention has to take into account the
impact of climate change and how communities are going to
survive when faced with an increasingly hostile home planet. No
yan't explained how access to clean water helps make the
community in the Marshall Islands even more resilient.
Speaker 13 (14:49):
Well, if you're trying to survive, the last thing you
want to worry about is an outbreak of diarrhea or apatitis.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Or you know, water born diseases.
Speaker 13 (15:02):
That are preventable, and so clean water, you know you're
much much more better as a community if you can
thrive and.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
On clean water. It's as simple as that water is life.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
One night during my trip to the Marshall Islands, I
was able to join Kia for a dinner that celebrated
the completion of their water project, meaning that everyone in
the Marshall Islands had access to water that won't make
them sick. To get a better sense of what this
really means, I wanted to talk to some families who
had received those filters and to see what the clean
water access meant to them. We've all heard that water
(15:58):
is life, and that was a slogan news for Kio's project,
But it's difficult to appreciate that if you live in
a place where you can just turn on a tap
and have access to clean, safe water whenever you want.
When Kio made their posters for that dinner, they included
a photo of a little girl on Arno Island who'd
been one of the first to receive their filters, happily
drinking from a jar of clean water. That was back
(16:20):
in twenty eighteen. Since then, they thought they'd heard the
terrible news that she died, but just before the dinner
they found out she hadn't, and so they invited her
to join the celebration. I was able to sit down
with her, her mother, and other recipients of the filters
for a quick interview via translator. On the tiny island
of Boken voter.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
Al So, they never filtered the water before. They would
drink straight from the water wells or the water catchments.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Sometimes, she said, people would get sick. We also spoke
to Aneiti, a resident of Wrong Wrong on the day
that she got her filter. Frontine helped translate her responses.
Speaker 14 (17:01):
Yanity, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Okay, But she had heard about that there was going
to be filters coming to the island. When she first heard,
she thought the filters were going to go directly to
the water tanks. And now that it's more accessible, it's
like she saw this bucket. She's happy. It's better. It's better.
Speaker 15 (17:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Recently there have been an outbreak of diary around the atoll,
so this was a welcome relief.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So she had heard that there was optic of cases
in major the capital, and when she had first learned
about her she was scared and worried. But to hear
that there's folks coming here to the island to check
(17:57):
on the water, it made them feel a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You addings the family from Ana who travel a long
way on a small boat to meet us, we're looking
forward to getting back to their home. Life on the
outer a tolls isn't easy, but it's not one they
want to walk away from. With the threat of climate
change already putting their home in peril, having access to
clean water must be a welcome relief. I asked to say,
(18:21):
preferred life here on the capitol A toll or back home.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
Yeah, she says life in the outer Islands is better.
There's more space, more freedom to move around for the kids.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
There are things she'd like to change, of course, but
mostly her concern was preserving their little piece of paradise
for future generations.
Speaker 7 (18:38):
She'd like her kids to be able to enjoy access
to clean water, whether it be through more water catchments
that are being available to the family, and also the
electric city as you mentioned, perhaps with the generator stuff
(19:04):
like that to make life more easier. Being the outer Lands.
She'd like to, you know, like in the future be
able to see the fishing grounds preserved as well as
the land for their farming needs.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
The way here works with local communities because they're from
local communities, enables them to be much more effective than
a nonprofit which comes from outside the community. On wrong
wrong they joke to laugh at local women Whenik's husband
comes from the island, so they were already welcome, and
then after some time bantering, they explained the way the
water filters work in marshal Leeds families. They're still a
(19:46):
fairly gender division of labor in many cases, and it
seemed to be that the women on the island were
the ones who stayed to learn about the filters, so
it was appropriate that it was women who were teaching them.
Preservation doesn't mean they can't change. The Marshall Islands have
seen a huge change in the last few years, and
much of that is down to the dedicated work of
(20:06):
a large number of women who form community groups to
empower each other and address social, ecological and public health
issues that are facing their communities. The umbrella organization that
works with these women's groups is called whit Me. I
let Maria from Whitney explain what that means and why
they started the group in the first place.
Speaker 10 (20:24):
First of all, welcome, as you know, with ME stands
for women in ed together marshal Allands. It also means
in Marshalise your flower, and that's how we wanted the
acronym to be to mean both English and Marshalise. And
as it was established in nineteen eighty seven to fill
(20:46):
a gap with respect to the advancement of women. In
nineteen seventy five there was the Decade for Women Union
Decade for Women, and there were two conferences that took
place and there were a lot of issues that came
about in those two meetings. They were dealing with domestic violence,
(21:10):
alcohol abuse, suicide, the youth, other problems of child abuse
and neglect. So from those women started to meet, at
least some women started to talk about this was there
were no representatives of women in the decision making bodies,
(21:31):
whether at the local government levels or at the national level.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So that's.
Speaker 10 (21:40):
And we got the support of our traditional women leaders.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Woman works alongside traditional leaders are not around them. The
same was true of all the programs that have been
successful on the islands. On our last day, we visited
one the program that builds the canoes. We heard about.
Although the programs founded to preserve the cultural heritage of
the islands and their unique seafaring technologies, some of which
are only just being replicated in modern crafted Europe in
(22:05):
the USA, it also responded to a need that the
community had. In this case, that need was education.
Speaker 16 (22:12):
So we are a training program for at risk young
men and women of the Martial Lands who It started
out as a project back in the eighties. One of
our twenty found co founder of this program. The museum
contracted him to go through various islands within the Republic.
(22:32):
And you're talking about back in the eighties, and we
were losing our designs fasts. People were coming to Maaguro
or going to the States, which is going off islands
to the many reasons, and because of that, they wanted
to capture that uniqueness of these design But when he
was going through from one adult to another, he noticed
(22:55):
that there were a lot of young kids not going
to school. I'm sure you if you're aware of it,
But throughout the Republic there's only about four or five
ice schools, and most of them are a boarding school. So,
for example, I grew up in Jeluit, and in that
at all there's a high school, boarding high school, and
(23:18):
then it gators to about six or seven other islands.
So parents have no choice but to send their kids.
If they want to go beyond eight grade, you have
to leave home and go to the boarding schools.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
In addition to offering a skill set and an education,
the program has counselors in mental health and addiction. They
teach young men and women maths, literacy, and how to
build the canoes, but they also empower them in creating
the sustainable alternative transport method that will be vital in
building a sustainable future for their home. Likewise, would meet.
The approach. It's based on listening to people.
Speaker 14 (23:53):
Women a chiefs you know, will let them know what
we'll be doing and what what would they want us
to do, and we has to to talk with their
you know, like because these women chiefs are owning some
of the neighboring islands and they know their people and
do need assessments so they can really understand what their
needs are because all the neighboring islands are different needs.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
They make an effort to tie their efforts to traditional
Marshalist principles and in doing so they keep their culture alive.
Speaker 10 (24:21):
So being together and getting this the other thing that
with me as done, which is connect our our being
to our culture. Being a matrilineal society, we have different
sayings or traditional traditional roles of women. Yeah, and then
(24:42):
we have our domestic balance when it's called whether in
weather meaning it's a land parcel, no mean to be alive,
to live and not to be killed as opposed to
being abused. So what do is somewhere you go to
(25:02):
and you're able to live freely or in a being
I mean you're well protected. So in all our conferences
we do use these traditionals so that it's something that
it's not new, it's traditional, so they cannot say, you know,
you cannot do that because it's a tradition, and we
(25:22):
keep the culture alive through that way as well.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Almost everyone you've heard from in this series, aside from
the Man, is a member of With Me or both.
Kio is one of the chapters With Me, and many
of the leaders as the daughters of Woodman's Leadership With Me,
have implemented parent as teacher, early childhood education programs, domestic
violence prevention programs, and many other social economic programs across
(26:01):
the islands. The results are easy to see. All over
the Marshall Islands, government officers and NGOs are run by women. Now,
the Marshall Islands had the first woman president in the
whole Pacific, and she was elected in January twenty sixteen,
a year when rampant misogyny was more evident than ever
in the United States presidential election. Of course, many Marshal
(26:22):
LEAs women go to the United States, and Woman's Members
are no exception.
Speaker 10 (26:26):
One of the major challenges has been to make sure
that we keep the organization intact. You guys, It's especially
at present time because there's a lot about migration that
we have to constantly work, especially with women in the
islands where they are. They come and then they'll stay
(26:47):
long in the urban areas, they just migrate out. So
now there are so many of them that they're trying
to form women's group in the.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
In the United States as well.
Speaker 10 (26:59):
Seeing so so they come and visit us and we
communicate with them occasionally, share and sharing information or other
issues because what the issues they experienced, you know, they're
also experience in the United States, and so they need
to be aware of how we're trying to deal with those.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
But many women also go to the US for their
education and then return to be part of their community
and help lift their community up. Now, thanks to Whipman's
hard work and the government's efforts, women don't have to
leave to get these skills. The Energy Department has trained
women on outer islands, for example, to fix their own
power grades.
Speaker 17 (27:41):
Yeah, so we're kind of all over the place. And
one time we went and actually uh train a community
of all women, like uh, you know, we had to
include men to allow women to be part of the training.
And we have nine women that graduated certified trainers and
(28:06):
we awarded them with tools and everything, so when there's
power outages and there's solar home systems and they can
address it. And Grace who's in the middle, that that's
the island where she's from, where we train the woman
to become trainers, and it's our first ever. So when
(28:27):
we found that it was successful, we try to extend
it out to the other islands. So I think that's
one of the reasons why it's difficult for countries such
as US where we've been colonized and trying to find
a balance between a modern day government form of democracy
where you're taught that individualism is important and your rights
(28:51):
are important, and then you have your traditional structure where
when you're grow up you're taught that it's a collective society.
Your piety is important, respecting your thoughts are not worth it,
your elders and you know your chiefs in So I
(29:13):
think that's where we have to find the balance.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
This comment that Angeline made in our chat after her
excellent presentation on energy sovereignty really got me thinking about
the post colonial future of the Marshall Islands. Today, they're
empowered as an independent nation, but they still have to
exist within a framework where corporations and more powerful governments
don't have to pay for the consequences of their actions.
In twenty twenty two, the US unsealed indictment of a
(29:38):
Chinese couple who bribe five Marshal Lease members of parliament
and attempted to bribe a six in order to help
them carve out a kind of mini state, a so
called special economic zone as a tax haven or wronga lapatole.
This is one of the places heavily impacted by the
nuclear testing we spoke about earlier. Hildehind, among others, opposed this.
She said economic di element is and should be encouraged,
(30:01):
but not at the expense of money laundering and other
similarly ill activities that are usually a part of money laundering.
As was obvious in the wrong l Appatol Special Administrative
Region legislation, the people of wrong Glapp deserved better standards
of living and economic development. Well, there's no evidence of
CCP involvement in the scheme. It came as part of
(30:22):
a larger panic about Beijing's influence in the region. Twenty
twenty two, the Solomon Islands signed a pack with China
to help improve their internal security, and China has already
provided the Solomons with police training and donated replica guns
and riot control equipment such as water cannon vehicles. The
Solomon Islands are still covered in bombs from the US
and Japan's fighting in the Pacific, but instead of helping
(30:45):
dispose of these, this form of investment is sending more
weapons to the government, not help to the people there.
According to a recent published study in the journal Science,
the world's corporations produce so much climate change causing pollution
that it would eat up forty four percent of their
so they had to pay damages for the impact of
their activity. Your reusable straw might help, and it's good
(31:06):
that you're using it, But until the world and giant
corporations especially listen to the voices of people impacted by
our choices, things won't change. I want to end by
talking about the future of the Marshall Islands and how
Marshallysee people are determining that in the last century they've
been let down by the League of Nations who reallocated
(31:26):
the islands to the Japanese under Southeast Mandate, then let
down by the US and the UN after the war,
and they're still being let down by international institutions today
when their demands for climate fairless are ignored. But this
doesn't mean they can't benefit from international solidarity. It was
American made water filters and a significant donation from a
(31:47):
company better known for hiking that helped every single person
in the Marshall Islands get clean water. It was Greenpeace
who relocated people when the US government wouldn't, And it
was Marshally's women who took week long Norse or induced
boat rides across dangerous seas to distribute those water filters
that save lives in places where there's less access to care.
(32:07):
With access to the right resources and international solidarity and
good will, the possibilities for the Marshall Islands seem endless.
They've endured World War, survived the dropping of the atom bond,
and they're adapting to climate change by centering community and
their obligations to each other rather than trying to each
take what they can and get out. With access to
(32:27):
clean water and homes free of smoke, their children will
be healthier, and every child I met on the island
seem to have bright hopes for the future. I met
one kid who wanted to be a basketball player and
another who aspired to apparently be as tall as I am.
People in the Islands don't focus on their past, but
on their future, and with a little solidarity and decency
from the rest of the world, they have a very
(32:49):
bright one. I want to finish this series with the
explanation we got from Whitney of the Marshal Lely's flag.
It's a great flag, by the way, and you should
look it up if you haven't seen it. It's one
of the most common flags of convenience for merchant vessels
all over the world. I've seen it in several continents
but never really knew what it meant. At least for now,
it seemed to mean that these tiny islands, which have
(33:10):
been through so much still have great hopes for the future.
Speaker 10 (33:14):
The Marshalist flag there's two the orange and the white right,
and there they represented the relic chain and the Radit chain,
the sunrise chain of island and the sensor chain of
violent which formed the Marshal Land. So those two lines.
But those lines there's one orange and one weight. Orange
(33:37):
is for courage, it's called Cleo, and the white is
for peace. So but these lines are not parallel.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I mean they.
Speaker 10 (33:52):
Become larger as they move up, and they don't start
from the corner. They start from a little bit over
the corner of the flag, meaning that we have a past.
We didn't start from the beginning when we started this
new government in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And then you have the moves out.
Speaker 10 (34:11):
It doesn't go all the way to the corner at
the top, because we're always growing. There's so you know,
we're always growing.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
We need to grow. It's very important.
Speaker 15 (34:26):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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