The Marshall Islands, Part Four: Water Is Life

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 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, 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 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 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 Ram 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.

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 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. 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. The fact that KYO did 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 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.

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. 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.

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 olities 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 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. 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, 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 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.

water access meant to them. We've all heard that water 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

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 Boat, al.

water filters work in marshal Leeds families. They're still a 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 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.

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, 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, whether at the local government levels or at the national level. So that's and we got the support of our traditional women leaders.

community had. In this case, that need was education.

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 that there were a lot of young kids not going to school. I am sure you if you're aware of it. But throughout the republic there's only about four or five high 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 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 these boarding schools.

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 keep the culture alive through that way as well.

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 LEAs women go to the United States, and Woman's Members are no exception.

as well. 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.

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 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 think that's where we have to find the balance.

In twenty twenty two, the US unsealed indictment of a Chinese couple who bribe five Marshallease 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 on wronga Lapatole. This is one of the places is 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, 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. While there's no evidence of CCP involvement in the scheme, it came as part of 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 been through so much still have great hopes for the future.

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. And then you have the moves out. 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. We need to grow. It's very important.