Pacific Climate Justice TREK

Today is Friday, June 12th, our 7th day in Suva! Today was such an incredible learning experience. We started today off with heading to the PCC (Pacific Conference of Churches) office to meet with Ani, a representative from the AFG, or the Alliance for the Future Generation. She explained that the AFG was not formed by those with college degrees or credentials, but rather young and wise people with strong ambitions and emotions about the climate crisis in pacific islands. She had quite a sense of humor and completely captured our groups attention from the moment she started speaking. The AFG is an organization almost fully funded by the pockets of the members, making this group self-sufficient, unlike other climate change groups in Fiji that are funded by other countries. Ani is one of the many members of the AFG that advocate and fight for a sustainable future, one where future generations will not have the same problems.

Ani stated that the AFG had been calling out the Fijian government because they take grants and funding and use it in unhelpful ways. She explained how using money to fly to all different climate meetings and conferences takes away from the real reason that they are fighting for change. The state of these Pacific Islands is unlivable; no clean water, no homes, no basic necessities. All these people need is a little bit of help, just a bit of help and their lives would drastically improve.

One thing that stuck out to me was when she spoke about “Vanua” and how this applies to the climate crisis. Vanua in Fijian refers to the land, the ocean, and the people all together in one blend. AFG believes that climate justice should be connected like Vanua is connected to everything. When the ocean is brought up in climate conversations, people should be in that same conversation, and vice versa.

The last thing that Ani spoke about was how climate change doesn’t mean everything to you until it affects someone that you know personally. It is hard to understand the cruciality of this problem until it happens to you. She spoke of how her brother was injured in a storm due to an unnaturally occurring, climate change influenced storm. Personal stories like this need to be spread and brought up in conferences in order to make change, because people need to see the truth. Ani explained that these regulations being made are good, but everyone should witness the real stories that are happening as we speak.

After our great meeting with Ani, we headed over to the Colo-I-Suva rainforest for a lunch and an exploration into the beautiful park. This hike is filled with waterfalls everywhere, incredible birds, and relaxing swimming pools. The scenery was absolutely stunning, and the water was so refreshing to jump into. Our driver friend Levi said that he would always come here as a young adult with his friends to swim when it was warm. Today, it wasn’t too hot, but still much warmer than Ohio or Pennsylvania during the winter!

Finally, after heading back to the hotel after swimming in the rainforest’s waterfalls, we headed over to a one-year old’s birthday at the local Rotuman church. This was our friend Wilford’s niece’s birthday (Wilford was who took us to the Rotuman church service earlier this trip), and it was a religious celebration, but also an informal celebration. It was so much fun! All of the kids in front of us were so silly and after we ate dinner, we played with all the little kids (ages 9-12). We played with bubbles, played a rock-paper-scissors variant game, and another game that involved slapping each other’s hands in a circle. Basil, Sofia, and I were also messing with them saying ridiculous things like I was 101 years old and was Basil’s grandfather, or that Sofia was born on the 67^th of March. Then, I let them try some pop-rocks, and they all were shocked by it, which was very funny. I gave one of the boys a hot wheels car, and the other a Super Mario toy, and they loved the gifts. One thing I noticed was how giving and polite these kids were, as they kept offering us their candy. This is one part of the Pacific Island culture that American children could learn from! Then, it was time to leave, and it was sad to leave them, as our group and this group of children already had grown a relationship so quickly.

Written and Edited by:

Michael Graban

Class of 29′