It Could Happen Here - The Marshall Islands, Part Four: Water Is Life

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

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.   Donate to Kora In Okrane (KIO) Directly - Email them directly to donate: [e-mail] ** Donate to the Sawyer Foundation: https://www.sawyerfoundation.org/donate ** Learn more about Sawyer's clean water projects: https://www.sawyer.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy

Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or whenever you get your podcasts. while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. This is for all you guys so you get that. It's everything. Twice in the week I spent on Majuro, 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 rager.

Before trying and failing to go to sleep, I chatted 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 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 sombre reason. It was a celebration to remember 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, Marshallese 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 throw at a 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. sure 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 residents 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 Kora in Okrane. 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 was 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 Rongrong that would 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 they did to us. My name is Francine Wassey-Jacklick, but most people around town call me Matu. So if you hear Francine, they're not going to know who that is. I am a KIO member. I'm one of the officers as the secretary. I am a Keough member. I'm one of the officers as the secretary. And I've been a Keough member, gosh, I can't remember when, but we've come a long way.

Keough is about 17 years old right now. Wow. 17. Yeah, it's been a very fun ride. It's my fun job. Aside 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 Epidemiology. And three months ago, I was also given the authoritative role as the acting secretary of health because the secretary was not renewed politics. So, yeah, KIO is KIO, Kareno Rani, and we're very happy because our founder is here and it's Monique. So we'll do introduction and then we'll go into the agenda. Is that okay? Sounds good.

Okay, so I will hand it to the back, which is our founder, Monique. So Monique, go ahead. Hello, everyone. Hi. Welcome, Monique. I am the co-founder of Q, actually, not the founder, but we're really happy that you've made it. Your flight wasn't canceled. Last week, so many flights were canceled, so we're so nervous. So we're so nervous. But welcome in our language, we say ya kwe. Ya means rainbow. And kwe is you. So you are a rainbow to us.

I am a mother for now. I don't work. Most of us have their work. But I'm a full-time mother. And this is my baby, actually, Kiyo. It started 16 years ago. Myself and a friend, we were in school on the East Coast. And we graduated and we all came back.

And, you know, we were raised with this mentality to give back. We have lots of Marshallese proverbs. And Ibu Pagayo means to turn the tides. So it was our time to turn the tides. So we banded together all these like-minded, smart ladies and created Q. And it's a volunteer organization. We do this in our sleep, basically. All volunteer work. We don't get paid.

Yes. So we do various work from small projects like, you know, reading with the kids and big projects like this water culture project. My name is Kathy. I work for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Commerce with the fisheries memorandum. Memora and I've been a field member since the first year, 16 years ago and it is like Monique said it's an honor and we are very humbled by the visit. I welcome you all and hope you have a great visit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yau Kwe, my name is Samantha. I work at the Ministry of Finance as an accountant and I'm Keo Tre.

Thank you. Thank you. Yau Kwe everyone and welcome to our shore. My name is Grace but everyone called me Kuma. So I'm very pleased to meet all of you. When they say we have all these media, you know, big news media outlets coming from the state, I was kind of nervous. But anyways, I've been a Q member since 2014. I was so amazed by all the work that these ladies have been doing for the Marshall Islands. I'm very proud to be part of Q Club. I work at Rongelap Atoll Local Government.

I'm not sure if you know, but Rong one of those atoll that was affected by the nuclear testing so um again welcome. Kia worked with Sawyer the people who make the ubiquitous water filter which is a favorite for thru-hikers and other outdoors people to provide a water filtration system that allows Marshallese people to filter the rainwater they collect and remove harmful bacteria that can cause diarrhea and vomiting. While these might seem undesirable to listeners in the US, they can be fatal in other settings. In 2019, around 1.5 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 the way it was realized. Kio began distribution in the most remote and hard-to-reach atolls, 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 Majuro, the capital. I've seen lots of NGO projects in dozens of countries. I've worked with some of them, 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, I 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 Keogh 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 the Marshall Islands, completing the last island on Majuro Atoll in early July. But a few days later than that, when Kyo invited myself and some other journalists to a goodbye breakfast, they presented a filter to the former president of the Republic of Marshall Islands, Hilda Hine. Despite being the last person to get one, she was very grateful.

And it serves as a great illustration of the priorities of the group. They wanted to go to the hardest places first because they knew people there needed help the most. Here's President Hilda Hain after receiving her filter. I was telling Monique that we don't drink from our tap water. We have our own system

but 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 buying Pacific Pure water. I joined Keo 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, groundwater is harder and harder to come by in the Marshall Islands thanks 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 the CDC told me that the installation of these tanks has increased the 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 Soya 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 the long journey to the outer islands. which is hard given the long journey to the outer islands. In my career in journalism and in non-profit, I've seen countless well-intentioned aid projects completely fail to consider the need for sustainability and become useless oddities in a few years. Cargo bikes made a huge difference to coffee farmers in Rwanda until they needed new brake pads and there wasn't an importer for them. The same goes for the countless glucometers I've seen distributed to people who can't access the batteries they use or the test strips 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 non-profits looking to maximize donation dollars or media opportunities, and in part because the only maintenance a soil filter needs is a backflush of the filtered water that it makes. Yesterday, we heard a little from the Marshallese Environmental Protection Agency about how they grapple with climate change. Today, I want to explain how they're working alongside KEO to ensure that even as sea levels rise, Marshallese people will have access to safe water. The Marshallese 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 islands together to reduce the cost, sharing a small boat. It's a rare example of a non-profit and a government working together without competing or doing the same thing twice. At first, Mariano explained, people weren't sure that such a tiny filter could make such a big difference. So Keo worked with the EPA to use a visual test for microbial activity to show people how effective it was. Here she is explaining how the EPA helped Keo build trust in the efficacy of the Sawyer filters. When Sawyers and Keogh approached us with the filters, before that a lot of people were already asking us, so can we trust this? Can you do a test in your lab to tell us and confirm that this is as good as they claim it to be. Doing the test allowed the EPA to help KEO get greater uptake for their filters

and allowed KEO to help the EPA achieve one of its mandated goals. And so when we produce these very visual quanta or quanti trays, the experts will get into it but when we produce them and show a visual uh 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 and and you know we we 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 into the microbials of whatever this

is the difference the water before the filter and then after and so we're just really happy that Keough was able to include us this is one of our mandates but we never resourced that way to know, do all of the things that we want to do to address water quality issues. Of course, it's impossible to deal with a water issue in isolation. Everything in the Marshall Islands and really anywhere else where 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. Marianne explained how access to clean water helps make the community in the Marshall Islands even more resilient. Well, if you're trying to survive, the last thing you want to worry about is an outbreak of diarrhea

or hepatitis or, you know, waterborne diseases that are preventable. And so clean water, you're much more better as a community if you can thrive on clean water. It's as simple as that. Water is life. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community Thank you. those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again,

the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with cheese man laughs and all the vibes that

you love. Each week we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el te caliente and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by

Honey German where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 is life, and that was a slogan used for Kiyo'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 2018. Since then, they thought they'd heard the terrible news that she'd 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 Bokenboten. So, they never filtered their water before? They would drink straight from the water wells or the water catchments. Sometimes, she said, people would get sick. We also spoke to Anidi, a resident of Rong Rong, on the day that she got her filter. Francine helped to translate her responses.

Thank you. How are you? How are you? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. What 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. Recently, there had been an outbreak of diarrhea around the atoll, so this was a welcome relief. So she had heard that there was uptick of cases in Maduro, the capital, and when she had first learned about it, she was scared and worried. But to hear that there's folks coming here to the island to check on the water,

it made them feel a little bit more at ease. The family from Arno, who had travelled a long way on a small boat to meet us, were looking forward to getting back to their home. Life on the outer atolls 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 if they preferred life here on the capital atoll or back home. Yeah, she says life in the outer islands is better. There's more space, more freedom to move around for the kids.

There are things she'd like to change, of course, but mostly her concern was preserving their little piece of paradise for future generations. She'd like her kids to be able to enjoy access to clean water, to enjoy access to clean water, whether it be through more water catchments being available to the family and also electric city as mentioned perhaps with the generator stuff like that to make life more easier in the Outer Islands. 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. The way Kia works with local communities, because they're from local communities, enables them to be much more effective than a non-profit which comes from outside the community. On Rong Rong, they joke to laugh with local women. Monique's husband comes from the island, so they're already welcome.

And then after some time bantering, they explain the way the water filters work. In Marshallese families, there's still a fairly gendered division of labour 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 there can't be 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 have formed community groups to empower each other

and address social, ecological and public health issues that are facing their communities. The umbrella organisation that works with these women's groups is called WUPMI. I'll let Maria from WUPMI explain what that means and why they started the group in the first place. First of all, welcome. As you know, WUPMI stands for Women United Together Marshall Islands. It also means in Marshallese, your flower. And that's how we wanted the acronym to be, to mean both English and Marshallese. And as Daisy said, it was established in 1987 to fill a gap with respect to the advancement of women.

In 1975, there was the decade for women, UN 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. issues that that came about in those two meetings. They were dealing with domestic violence, alcohol abuse, suicide of the youth, other problems, child abuse and neglect. So from those, women started to meet, at least some women, started to talk about this, because 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. WUMI works alongside traditional leaders and not around them. The same was true of all the programs that have been successful on the islands. On our last day, we visited WAM, the program that builds the canoes we heard about. Although the program was founded to preserve the cultural heritage of the islands and their unique seafaring technologies, some of which are only just being replicated in modern craft in Europe and the USA, it also responded to a need that the community had. In this case, that need was education. So we are a training program for at-risk young men and women of the Marshall Islands.

It started out as a project back in the 80s. One of our co-foundfounder of this program, the museum contracted him to go through various islands in the Republic. And we were talking about back in the 80s and we were losing our designs fast. People were coming to Maduro or going to the States or just going off islands for too many reasons. going to the states which is going off island to the many reasons and because of that they they wanted to capture that uniqueness of east design but when he was going through from one atoll to another he noticed that there were a lot of young kids not going to school so i'm not sure if you're aware of it but throughout the republic there's only about four or five high schools and most

of them are boarding schools. So for example I grew up in Jelluit and in that atoll there's a high school boarding high school and then it gathers to about six or seven other islands. So parents have no choice but to send their kids if they want to go beyond eighth grade, you have to leave home and go to these boarding schools. 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, Wutmi's approach is based on listening to people. Women chiefs, we let them know what we'll be doing and what would they want us to do. And we ask them 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 assistance so they can understand what their needs are because all the neighboring islands are different needs. They make an effort to tie their efforts to traditional Marshallese principles

and in doing so, they keep their culture alive. So being together and getting this. The other thing that would me stand which is connect our Being to our culture Being a matrilineal society we have different sayings or traditional roles of women yeah, and then we have our Domestic violence one is called Wado in Meur.

Wado meaning it's a land parcel. Meur means to be alive, to live and not to be killed as opposed to being abused. So Wado in Meur is somewhere you go to 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 traditional 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 it's a tradition and we keep the culture alive through that way as well. Welcome, I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry,

we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, películas, and entertainment

with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keogh is one of the chapters of Wutmi, and many of the Keogh leaders are the daughters of Wutmi's leadership. Wutmi have implemented parent-as-teacher early childhood education programs, domestic violence prevention programs, and many other social, economic, and political programs across the islands. The results are easy to see. All over the Marshall Islands, government offices 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 2016, a year when rampant misogyny was more evident than ever in the United States presidential election. Of course, many Marshallese women go to the United States, and Whitby's members are no exception. One of the major challenges has been to make sure that we keep the organization intact. Because it's especially in at present time because

there's a lot of out migration that we have to constantly work with especially with women in the other islands where they come and then they don't stay 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 groups in the United States as well. Oh, interesting. Wow. Yeah.

So they come and visit us and we communicate with them occasionally, sharing information or other issues because what issues they experience here, they also experience in the United States. And so they need to be aware of how we're trying to deal with those. 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 Wutmi'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 grids. Yeah, so we're kind of all women. Like, we had to include men to allow women to be part of the training. And we have nine women that graduated certified trainers. And we awarded them with tools and everything. So when there's power outages in their solar home systems, they can address it. And Grace, who's in the middle, that's the island where she's from, where we trained the woman to become trainers. And it's our first ever.

So when we found that it was successful, we tried 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 are important and then you have your traditional structure when where you're when you're grow up you're taught that it's a collective society you your piety is important respecting it's not your thoughts are not worth it if your elders and your you know your chiefs.

So I think that's where we have to find the balance. 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 2022, the US unsealed an indictment of a Chinese couple who bribed five Marshallese members of parliament and attempted to bribe a sixth in order to help them carve out a kind of mini-state, a so-called special economic zone, as a tax haven on Rongelap Atoll. This is one of the places heavily impacted

by the nuclear testing we spoke about earlier. Hilda Hine, among others, opposed this. She said, economic development 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 Rongelap Atoll special administrative region legislation. The people of Rongelap deserved better standards of living and economic development. While there's no evidence of CCP involvement in this scheme, it came as part of a larger panic about Beijing's influence in the region. In 2022, the Solomon Islands signed a pact 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 44% of their profits if 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 Marshallese 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 South Sea's 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 fairness 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 Marshallese women who took week-long nausea-inducing 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 goodwill, the possibilities for the Marshall Islands seem endless. They've endured world war, survived the dropping of the atom bomb, 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 seemed 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 on 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 Wutmi of the Marshallese 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 seems to mean that these tiny islands, which have been through so much,

still have great hopes for the future. The Marshallese flag, there's two, the orange and the white, right? And they represent the relic chain and the radar chain, the sunrise chain of islands and the sunset chain of islands, which form the Marshall Islands. and the Sunset Chain of Island, which formed the Marshall Islands. So those two lines, but those lines, there's one orange and one white. Orange is for courage. It's called Kio. And the white is for peace. So, but these lines are not parallel.

I mean, they 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 1979. And then it moves up. It doesn't go all the way to the corner at the top because we're always growing. So, you know, we're always growing.

We need to grow. It's very important. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.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.com. Thanks for listening.

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