With our workshops, we always make small trips. The voyage told below in the video leads us to the island of Kolol En. We accompanied Jina David, an environmental activist and Councilmen. Together with a group of young people, Jina tested the water quality in the island’s rain reservoirs and at the same time taught the young people how to provide clean water in the future. Jina’s project was made possible by Jo-Jikum and KIO.
Autore: Dawai Uriona
Maloelap calling
For a week, our team member Christina Schulze accompanied a research team led by the Marshallese scientist Mark Stege in their work on the Maloelap Atoll. From this week she brought you a little movie titled “Stewards of the Environment”, which already gives you some of the narrative style and moods of our future movie.
And 13,070 kilometers away from the Maloelap Atoll, the Potsdam (Germany) based musician Marc Schicker composed the music for her video while watching it. Have fun watching and listening.
The work of the research team around Mark Stege has been made possible by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Marshall Islands Conservation Society.
Camera is running and running and running
We went to Rita. From here you can not drive on. Majuro’s main road ends here. (*1) From this point you can look over to the next islands of the atoll, which are arranged around the lagoon. Our workshop participants Hanson and Ronny chose the location for their interview. Both grew up here in Rita, but now live in the town-center of Majuro. We set up the tripod, set up the big Canon and check the sound. Ok, are you ready? “Audio picks up.” “Camera is running.” Let’s go.
kickoff meeting for workshops
April, 18th: We have been feverishly looking forward to this day, it is the first major information event to enlist participants for our participative film project. We had been working a lot for publicity for this meeting in advance. We placed ads on Facebook and sent a bulk SMS to all cell phone owners on the island. The Marshall Islands Journal wrote about us and Mark was a guest on a live broadcast on the radio. The city was full of our flyers and there was quite a lot of word of mouth recommendation.
Known all over the place
Much has happened since our last entry. On the 2nd of April we got our visas for a whole year. From this moment we could really start. There is a lot going on right now. Today we want to tell you briefly about the biggest upcoming event, on which we are currently working at full speed.
First shooting
Nuclear bombs were the first serious threat to the existence of the Marshall Islands. 67 (in words: sixty seven!) nuclear fusion and nuclear fission bombs the US detonated over parts of ‘their’ former UN trust territory. Quite a few here say the new bomb, which threatens the Marshall Islands now will hardly be less destructive. They are talking about climate change. It will not contaminate the land. It will devour it.
“Ti a boo” means goodbye
In the meantime, we had to relocate the Kiribati project to the Marshall Islands, another island state in the region, which faces similar challenges as Kiribati due to climate change. Why this “move” was necessary, you can read about here.
“Un Toe” and clapping three times
It is Saturday evening. Since our arrival we have met many people and despite the short time already made friends. One of them is Kabuta, a pastor to be who likes to smoke and drink a beer once in a while and continuously invites us to drink Kawa with him. And today the time has come.
Abatao
Officially we are still “tourists” and it’s weekend again. So we do the Cultural Tour to Abatao and get to know this side of the island. Abatao is the second island of North Tarawa, and the first one that can not be reached via a bridge. It is already considered an Outer Island. It is a foretaste on the other remoter islands of Kiribati.
Uncertainty Relation
It was low tide and we went out into the lagoon. We had spotted 3 children sitting like little dots on a small sandy elevation in the shallow water. We wanted to get near and see what they were doing, greet them with “Mauri” and take a few pictures. When we arrived, we saw that they were digging for shells in the mud, collecting them in their plastic bowls. In between they again and again jumped into the azure shallow water for some refreshment. The oldest of the three boys may have been 7, the youngest hardly 5 years old. We say “Mauri”, but hardly get noticed. Only one boy gives us a broad smile. We stoop down and start digging too. Viviana and little Maira are soon successful.