Reverse the Trend:Save Our People, Save Our Planet

Dear Friends,

We are so excited to share our updates with you. The grant from the Prospect Hill Foundation and your generous support have enabled us to hire two graphic designers, who are alumni of the Rhode Island School of Design. Together, they have created a wonderful website, which will host the global youth advocacy network. They further designed the logos for the project. The photos are attached.

In addition, we have been collaborating closely with Lovely Umayam of Bombshelltoe. We have been laying the foundation with her to create the first episode of the docuseries. This first episode will be on the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific region.

We have two new advisers for the project, who are Benetick Kabua Maddison and Dr. April L. Brown. Benetick graduated from Springdale High School and currently attends Northwest Arkansas Community College. He is the Project Specialist for Youth, Climate, and Nuclear Issues at Marshallese Educational Initiative, a nonprofit organization that serves the Marshallese community, raises awareness of Marshallese culture, and facilitates intercultural dialogue to foster positive social change.

For more than a decade, Benetick has worked with his peers and Marshallese students and their families on projects to increase retention rates and to promote Marshallese culture and history, as well as on issues affecting his people and homeland. Benetick was the Keynote Speaker at the I2SL Annual Conference in October 2019, where he spoke about the impact of climate change in the Marshall Islands, was featured on the Nuclear Voices website connecting advocacy groups to nuclear frontline community members (launched January 2020), served as a panelist on the Norwegian Peace Association’s webinar, “Nuclear Weapons Testing, Consequences and Risks,” in June 2020, and spoke to the impact of forced relocation and the current dangers of Runit Dome and climate change on the Marshallese people during the virtual commemoration of the 75^th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Dr. April L. Brown is the co-founder and president of MEI. She is an amazing individual who provides sage advice to us.

We also have a fantastic spokesperson, Selina N. Leem. Selina N. Leem, a 23-year-old climate warrior from the Marshall Islands, recently finished working as a Youth Representative at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to the UN in New York.  

Born and raised in the capital atoll of the Marshall Islands, Majuro, Leem, “a small island girl with big dreams” as she often called herself, credits her grandfather for her deep awareness of the increasing fate of her island home through his stories about how the ice in the North Pole and South Pole were melting and would soon flood the Marshall Islands. He helped her become much more aware of her surroundings, of the fact that she was literally surrounded by water.

At age 16, Leem moved to Germany to finish high school in the UWC (United World College) Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, a prestigious international program that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma, where she took on the role of a climate change advocate for her country. 

Representing the Marshall Islands, Leem was the youngest delegate at the COP21 (2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris). During the closing remarks, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum gave her the opportunity to give the final statement on behalf of her country. Leem told the world that the Paris agreement, “should be the turning point in our story; a turning point for all of us.”

In August 2020, she was invited to deliver a significant statement at the UN High-Level Meeting to commemorate the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.

In January, we will be launching the website and hosting activities around the entry-into-force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear (TPNW).

We would greatly appreciate it if you could support our GlobalGiving Campaign on December 1. Donations will be used to support our launch event and activities to celebrate the TPNW.

Thank you so much for your generous support!

Links:

• Selina N Leem's statement at the UN