Pacific WAVE Media Network

Stopping AIDS means stopping myths: Pacific ‘media myth busters’ initiative begins with HIV/AIDS

2009-12-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

For immediate release: 1 December 2009, Rarotonga, COOK ISLANDS: Three Pacific journalists have been part of a new ‘media myth busters’ initiative launched this week by the Pacific WAVE Media Network. FM news network director Titi Gabi of Papua New Guinea and television documentary producer Shona Pitt of the Cook Islands feature in the media myth buster’s inaugural brochure which folds out into a full colour poster.
After its online debut, the poster will make its way as a full-colour print version into Pacific newsrooms.
Lisa Williams-Lahari, a founding member of WAVE who also leads the networks advocacy on gender and HIV/AIDS, says the peer-advocacy initiative aims to make the most of real experiences from Pacific contexts. She says journalists responding to a WAVE online survey earlier this year, had identified newsroom resources as something they would like to see more of.
“World AIDS Day is more than bumping up programs, advertising and content for 24 hours or a few days in December. It can also provide a space for journalists to talk about what they are getting right in coverage – and share ideas on how we fix what needs fixing,” says Williams-Lahari.
“Media myth busters essentially allow us a non-confronting way to start challenging the way we see and report our worlds. Tapping into personal experience, especially based on professional experience, is just an idea we wanted to develop in a cost-effective way. We had interest from our male colleagues in being part of this project but with daily news deadlines it’s hard to keep advocacy a priority. We’re pleased to begin the initiative with HIV/AIDS and aim to keep up the momentum on other issues where myth busting is also important,” she says.
“Speculation and myths often emerge when people don’t have access to the facts,” says Papua New Guinea journalist Titi Gabi.
Gabi addresses the myth of miracle healings via new remedies or evangelical healing, challenging news colleagues to get medical balance to stories on miracle cures for HIV/AIDS to help save lives.
She shares her insights and advice alongside TV Documentary producer Shona Pitt who deals with the perception of abstinence being the key factor why cases are not being reported in smaller Pacific nations such as the Cook Islands, where she says, “The conditions for HIV/AIDS to spread, really fast, are already in place.”
Assumptions around gender being all about women also need to be dealt with, and form the third myth ‘busted’ by Williams-Lahari.
“It will be good to see media myth buster resources in a lot of other areas and events, and we are developing our VAW, climate change, and media freedom myth busters for 2010,” she says.
Support came from four key partners in getting a campaign on HIV/AIDS off the ground. The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcast Development (AIBD), and UNESCO helped get WAVEmedia members to some brainstorming meetings in July, during the AIBD‘s first Pacific conference in Nadi. Thanks to the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation, (PIAF) the group attended a post-conference workshop on HIV/AIDS and developed the resource from there with a small grant from PIAF.
View the posters above, and to update your mailing details or send a request to increase the allotted numbers of 2 per newsroom, send comment and feedback to info@pacificwave.org before December 10th.

Pacific Women in the Media Action Plan and link to Section J (Women and the media) of the Beijing Declaration

Media urged to follow up on commitments to end VAW

2009-11-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 25 November 2009--Members of the Pacific WAVE Network of women in media, information and communications have called on media colleagues to step up analysis on national commitments to end violence against Pacific women and girls. They are also being encouraged to look at supporting safer workplaces for women in the media."The three words of the theme of the 2009 campaign are an important reason why freedom of expression and a free media are so necessary.’

"Commit, Act, Demand' is a call on journalists to examine our own industry, but also to demand accountability on progress to end VAW from our leaders at all levels"

says WAVE coordinator Ulamila Wragg.
"The Pacific has committed many times over to ending the tragedy of family violence taking its toll on our region. The figures are unacceptable. As many as 87 out of every 100 women in the Marshall Islands has suffered physical violence at the hands of her beloved. In Papua New Guinea, sexual violence against women and girls and the torture and killing of women suspected of sorcery reveals an alarming cultural impunity and disregard for the human rights of half of the population,” says Wragg.
"Imagine our political, church and community leaders being in the private sector business, with the commitment to end VAW being one of the indicators of performance.

"..based on the UNIFEM Pacific postcard which provides the regional update, all our Pacific leaders would have to go home, and their positions re-advertised.”

"A strong, free and informed media which follows through on commitments to end VAW after leaders have reaped the publicity from signing them is a key part of the solution."
"In turning the spotlight on demanding action to commitments made, journalism itself needs to be a safer industry for Pacific women to work in," says post-graduate student and WAVE founding member Lisa
Williams-Lahari.
"Behind the newspaper headlines, radio voices, and TV screens,newsgathering often means being at public events, working evenings, or travel to remote areas and outside the country. Depending on how entrenched the gender roles are at home and at work, the incidences shared by WAVE members of physical, sexual and emotional violence experienced by women and witnessed by their colleagues shows that the media has to live up to its own commitments too." ENDS

*UNIFEM Pacific report, PACWIN 24/11/09
Contact:
Ulamila WRAGG, Coordinator
Pacific WAVE Media Network
(682) 55 999
info@pacificwave.org

More on the Pacific Women in the Media Action Plan, Section J and broader Pacific regional commitments to gender equality

HI-5 e-News Update of the Pacific WAVE Media Network

2009-10-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

*Pacific WAVE Media Network*
LEADERSHIP* EXCELLENCE* VISION.
Women Advancing a Vision of Empowerment
*HI-5 ENEWS UPDATE VOL 1, ISSUE 2, 2009*
*1. WAVE AND SPC LINK VIA MOU*
News worth celebrating has been the tone of our small but sure ripples to growing Pacific WAVEs of change through media action! A major partnership for WAVE has been formed with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (www.spc.int) who has signed an MOU with WAVE to mutually support our shared goals towards better lives for Pacific people. The MOU paves the way for resource and information sharing efforts on gender advocacy and media work, especially in three key commitments to women in the media:
Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action for Development, Equality and Peace: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/media.htm
Women and the Media in the Pacific Platform for Action on Gender Equality (rev. 2003
http://www.spc.int/hdp/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=35&Itemid=44
The SPC/UNESCO/PINA Pacific Women in the Media Action Plan
http://www.islandsbusiness.com/islands_business/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=17118/overideSkinName=issueArticle-full.tpl
SPC’s Human Resource Development Communications Adviser Tione Chinula is the person WAVE works with under this MOU, which has seen SPC supporting WAVE in its website development and visioning/strategic planning work.

*2. WAVE SALUTES FEMLINKPACIFIC
The Global Partnership for Peace and the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) have confirmed what we already know: FemLINKpacific rocks! Coordinator Sharon Baghwan-Rolls has been named as the Gender Liaison Person for the international steering group of the GPPAC, at www.gppac.net
WAVE had nominated SBR as our winner in the University of Queensland 2009 call for nominations for the Communication and Social Change Award. This saw a swathe of nominations which eventually led to the CSC committee deciding on New DAWN Radio in Bougainville. We add our congratulations to the 2009 winner (see full story and background to the award process at http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=19349) , and salute Sharon and the FemLINKPacific team of Fiji, . http://www.femlinkpacific.org.fj for their important work in claiming community radio spaces for empowering women in Fiji to speak on the issues that affect their lives; and regional peace-building initiatives. FemLINKpacific Coordinator Sharon Baghwan-Rolls is also linked to WAVE as part of a small ‘founding pillar’ group whom we count on for important movement-growing advice and support.
*3. WAVE VISIONING AND VOICE GROWS AT AIBD AND PINA*
YES, we need a Pacific WAVE for women in the media! That was the resounding feedback from our many talks and discussions with Women in the media who were a part of the AIBD and PINA meetings in Nadi and Port Vila. Assistance with visioning was given with the help of UQ’s Marsali McKinnon, who is no stranger to media networking in the Pacific. Thanks to generous support from UNESCO, SPC, AIBD and AusAID’s Pacific Media fund, WAVE women were able to add to the presenters and networks at the 2009 AIBD General Conference, held in Nadi, Fiji, and the PINA regional Media meet, in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We spoke on a UNESCO-funded Gender Media Survey, and the use of social networking and the internet to grow a Pacific WAVE of change. WAVE founding member and projects adviser Lisa Williams-Lahari, Coordinator Ulamila Wragg, and subcommittee members Ruth Konia of Papua New Guinea and Lorna Adomea of the Solomon Islands were amongst those at AIBD and/or PINA. Importantly, WAVE is building links with USP journalism members and students Rachna Lal and Sheetal Prasad were able to join us at the Nadi meet, where we attended workshops on Media and Law and HIV/AIDS. WAVE Fiji members freelancer/I-Mode journalist Rosemary Bowry and Shangri-La Communications manager Lata Yaqona were able to catch up and provide important input into the visioning exercises and discussions held in informal breakout mode during AIBD and PINA. Watch this space for news and preparation on WAVE work and events into 2010.
*4. AWID SEED GRANT HELPS GROW ONLINE WAVES, RAISE FUNDING ISSUES *
Thanks to an AWID seed grant of 5,000 USD, WAVE is growing its online presence, admin work and advocacy. So far, the fund has supported the design and set up of a website in Joomla, and a guide which will be used to train WAVE members who can then update the site from where ever they are. The site will be launched before the end of the year and add to our blog and googlegroup online presence. The funds have also helped to get us to Nadi and other meetings while waiting on funding support which came in late but which would have not otherwise have allowed us to get people to places in time, and to help cover our set up and registration/admin expenses! The notion of a subscription fee to help keep WAVE networked and efficient so that we can fundraise for programs is something we will look at introducing once our inaugural elections and committee members are confirmed.
*5. GENDER AND CLIMATE CHANGE: WAVE-WALKING A PATH OF ACRONYMS TO COPENHAGEN*
It’s so ironic that in order to get funding to bring Gender and Climate change home to the Pacific, you have to leave your home to take the Pacific message on Gender and Climate change to the world. 2009 has been a flurry of networking and learning activity for journalist-turned-WAVE coordinator Ulamila Wragg. Along with getting WAVE’s initial steps on project proposals, strategic planning and administration into gear, Wragg, who leads the gender and media advocacy for WAVE on climate change, was a guest of the SPINF at the Pre-PALM summit 09 in Japan, and strengthened networks during two key forums in September and October:
WAVE to New York – WAVE in formalising links with the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) and was linked into the GCCA advocacy during the recent UN GA session on Climate Change (see www.climatefundsupdate.org ) where Wragg was one of two Pacific women in the ‘climate change eyewitnesses’ group amongst the NGOs lobbying world leaders in the lead up to the COP 15 in Copenhagen this December. (See www.en.cop15.dk )
WAVE to Bangkok – WAVE is also linked in to the GenderCC Women for Climate justice Network (see http://www.gendercc.net/policy/conferences/road-to-copenhagen.html for more) was supported to be part of the Bangkok meetings for engendering the Climate change negotiations process and outcomes document (See http://www.wedo.org/learn/campaigns/climatechange/making-news-at-bangkok-climate-change-negotiations )
WAVE to Jordan: Finally and most importantly, funds for grassroots follow-up work are one of the key attractions for Wragg who will represent WAVE to a TOT on Gender and Climate Change sponsored by the Gender Global Climate Alliance (GGCA made up of IUCN, WEDO, UNDP and UNEP) as part of the process towards raising Pacific voices on women and climate change in Copenhagen. The previous link on the WEDO homepage has more info on this network. You can watch Rebecca Pearl present on the Global Gender Climate Change Alliance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke9PB3ZopOY
*LINKS THAT INSPIRE: OUR WAVEMAKER FILM MAKER ON VAW*
The Solomon Islands cabinet is still pondering public release of a report which confirms the ugly truth: the women and girls of the Solomon’s are amongst those at highest risk on a global level, of domestic/gender violence, with little or no help for victims despite their legal and human rights. Their lives, experiences and rights are highlighted in an innovative television series produced in pidgin by our WAVE leader on gender and media advocacy around Violence against Women, Lorna Adomea. Adomea is part owner in Solomon’s ONE News TV, and has partnered with IWDA Australia to produce her ground-breaking program. For more info on the situation in the Solomon Islands, watch programme episodes and brush up on your pidgin English at http://www.onetelevision.com.sb/index.php/program-overview/domestic-violence.html
*WORDS THAT INSPIRE:*
“The greatest danger is silence. A dangerous, pregnant silence into which many things fall; a silence that comes in two forms. The silence of leaders who fail to speak, for whatever reason. And the silence of the people.”—Sophie Foster, Associate Editor for Fiji Times, on May 28 as the keynote speaker to the FWRM Graduating Emerging Leaders Forum (ELF) group of 2009.
Full text of the speech at http://www.michaelfield.org/sophie%20courage.htm
***
WAVE notes: The Pacific WAVE Media Network is made up of women in journalism, media, and communications work in the Pacific region. We believe in a vision of leadership and excellence for women in the media and work through media advocacy and information networking and welcome activities promoting innovation which help us meet our goals. We are a regional Non-profit entity registered in the Cook Islands with a portable secretariat based with our current coordinator, Ulamila Wragg. Email: info@pacificwave.org or rarowragg@gmail.com
***

PNG environmentalist takes her story to the UN

2009-09-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ursula Rakova (Carteret Islands, South Pacific). Tulele Peisa executive director Ursula Rakova was born on Han, the main island of the Carterets. After leaving the atoll to study social administration at Papua New Guinea University, she became a pioneer in the environmental movement, working for NGOs such as the Individual and Community Rights Advocacy Forum, Environment Law Centre and Oxfam. At the request of a group of Carteret Island chiefs, Ursula returned home to help form Tulele Peisa, an organization whose mission is to voluntarily relocate 1,700 Carterets Islanders, whose islands and food supply are rapidly eroding, to three safe and secure locations on mainland Bougainville over the next 10 years. She was awarded the Pride of Papua New Guinea award in 2008 for her outstanding contribution to the environment.
Watch Ursula: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1AqSuy5As0 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox5_IVEwhYY
Ursula’s Testimony:
For Ursula, seeing her ancestral homeland disappear is a hard reality. "In the Carterets land is traditionally owned by women," she says.

"My grandmother passed land to my mother and then it came to me. Ten years along the line I would love to pass on this island to my daughter, but I will not be able to do that."

The Carterets are a small group of islands off Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. Seawater is swamping the islands, making them uninhabitable. The community has built sea walls and planted mangrove trees, but they cannot stop the erosion from eating away the shoreline and destroying their gardens. "We have lost our staple food crop, which is swamp taro. We can grow a bit of bananas, but that’s also going down," Ursula explains. Islanders are surviving on fish and coconut.

Ursula’s people are being forced to migrate, but she is determined they will have a place to go where their culture and dignity are preserved.

She now runs an organisation called Tulele Peisa, or “Sailing the waves on our own”, to coordinate the relocation. They have secured land in the Tinputz district of Bougainville and are moving forward with plans to build houses for Carteret Islanders and expand the local primary school to make space for new children.

Ursula acts as a bridge.

She meets with families in the Carterets to talk about what awaits them on the mainland and negotiates with the community in Tinputz to ease the way for those who are resettling and improve the lives of local residents. If she can generate enough support, she wants everyone in Tinputz to have better access to clean water, quality education and healthcare.

Convincing people to uproot their lives isn’t easy. Some of the youth and the elderly say they aren’t willing to leave the islands. Ursula explains: “For them to move to another location is basically leaving their livelihood and their values and their cultures behind.”

For Carteret Islanders the options are not all bleak. But Ursula is well aware that humankind needs to stop polluting the atmosphere or tens of millions more people could be displaced from their homes.

“Climate change is not just about statistics. Climate change is not just about science. Climate change is about human rights.

“Where are human rights when it comes to people being displaced from their communities to another location not of their choice?” asks Ursula. “They have to move because climate change is forcing them to leave.”

Constance Okollet (Uganda, Africa). Constance is a peasant farmer from Tororo district in Eastern Uganda and a mother of seven. She is also a community activist and chairperson of the Osukura United Women network which includes 40 regional groups in Uganda’s Osukura Subcounty. In 2007, heavy rains destroyed the homes and food supply of Constance’s village displacing all of the residents. Starvation followed. Once the situation stabilized, the community was dealt a second blow: an unprecedented drought which dried up crops and wells, reigniting the cycle of hunger and thirst. Besides her leadership role in confronting the adverse events of climate change, Constance is also a community volunteer, helping with health care and HIV/AIDS drug distribution.
Constance’s Testimony:
The village’s normal weather patterns changed dramatically in 2007, when heavy rains destroyed villagers’ homes, crops and food. To this day the weather remains erratic.

“It rained and rained until all the land was soaked and our houses were submerged in the water. This forced us to move to higher ground where we sought refuge. By the time we came back home, all the houses had collapsed, our granaries were destroyed and food washed away. The remaining crops were rotten, and our food was no more.”

As the ground in the village became waterlogged, mosquitoes bred and the rate of malaria increased drastically. Five of Constance’s family became ill with the disease. The heavy rains washed away the latrines, contaminating the water sources. This caused a high number of cases of cholera and diarrhoea, which killed many people in the village. Due to floods, none of the health centres was operational, and some were destroyed completely, leaving the sick to fend for themselves.

When hunger set in, the villagers had to rely on the government and aid agencies for food. “This was so humiliating for us,” Constance explains. “We have never depended on aid to survive. We had to line up for food and clean water. What’s more, this food was not enough to sustain our family.”
The villagers were given fast-growing seeds, but immediately after they planted them, an unprecedented drought came.
“We had never experienced such heat, all of the crops dried up and the wells where we used to collect water were also dry,” says Constance. “There was no water in the boreholes, and so the cycle of hunger and thirst returned, but this time caused by the excessive heat.”
This cycle continues.
“There is noticeable change in the seasons - more droughts and erratic, destructive rains that have led to floods. Food production is very low and some people in my village fail to get a day’s food at all.”

“I request that developed countries reduce their emissions so that we can look forward to rains to plant our crops without having to face floods that wash them away, destroy our houses, increase diseases, and stop our children from attending schools. That’s all I am asking for on behalf of my fellow villagers.”

Sharon Hanshaw (Biloxi, Mississippi, USA). Sharon is the Executive Director of Coastal Women for Change (CWC), launched in January 2006. The group brings together community members in Biloxi, Mississippi to discuss and participate in long range planning and reconstruction. For over 20 years, Sharon ran a hairdressing salon and worked as a community advocate, until Hurricane Katrina propelled her to a position of leadership in Biloxi. She is also an Oxfam America Sister on the Planet and a Ms. Foundation for Women grant recipient.
Watch Sharon’s story: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/video/sharons-story
Sharon’s Testimony:
Three years after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina, one grassroots leader is harnessing the power of community.
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit Biloxi, Mississippi. Thirteen feet of water crashed through the streets, filling Sharon’s house with mud, scattering her belongings. The waters also flooded the hairdressing business she had run for 21 years. Months later, all the homes on her block were bulldozed to build a parking lot for the Imperial Palace casino.
“There it is; there's my tree," says Sharon, pointing to a spreading oak which once shaded her driveway and mailbox—but now it marks the place where her house used to stand, before Hurricane Katrina. "That's where we found my daughter's bed, afterward," she says, indicating a red car in the car park. "This was my backyard. This was the front porch."
She says the storm not only brought her destruction, but also transformation. As executive director of Coastal Women for Change, she has become an advocate and role model for her fellow survivors and is working to recreate the community that Katrina destroyed.
"This is a left-behind community," she says of East Biloxi, the close-knit, predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood where she was born and raised. Many houses in the neighborhood now stand abandoned. Some damaged homes, like hers, were razed after the storm, leaving behind only vacant lots. Others are flanked by white caravans, where families still have to live as they await government grants, insurance settlements, or other resources they need to finish rebuilding.
A few restored houses have "For Rent" signs, but rents have nearly doubled since the storm, and good jobs are hard to come by—so many displaced residents can't afford to move back home.
"We need affordable housing—not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Sharon. She points out that Biloxi's beachfront casinos and wealthier neighborhoods began rebuilding soon after the waters receded. But somehow those funds never reached this mostly low- and middle-income neighborhood.
There are many things, she says, that were lost and have not yet been replaced. “There's no housing going up here that's affordable, no library, no activity center, or anything for the children. ... So I have to do what's in my face right now."
Among other activities, CWC founded its own in-home child care program, it sponsors dinners and computer training for elderly residents, and it's taking steps to help locals prepare for the next, inevitable storm.
“This is our community," Sharon says. "We want it back the way it was or better."

Ulamila Kurai Wragg, watch her story: http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/energy/?p=600
Her testimony: “My story is just one of millions of untold stories from the Pacific Islands. The saddest part of our stories is that we are the most innocent in this man-made catastrophe, yet we are the ones paying the highest price. The Copenhagen summit is around the corner and I am not seeing a good picture so I am on a mercy dash to tell the world our many stories in an effort to get the leaders to save our islands. To our world leaders I say, display good leadership and let me remind you that if you do not consider our plight while you negotiate, you are essentially saying ‘heads we live, tails we die’.
I was born and raised in my father’s coastal Natewa village in the Fiji Islands, an archipelago of over 300 islands in the Pacific. Forty-one years on, I am still living on the coast, but in the Cook Islands, a neighbouring island state where my mother hailed from.
In 2005, five cyclones hit the Cook Islands within three weeks damaging buildings, killing marine life, flooding root and vegetable crops, flooding a good part of the islands with seawater leaving debris in their wake. Schools were closed and government workers spent days on end with the rest of the islanders cleaning up. Increasing sea surges, eroding shorelines, frequent cyclones and dried riverbeds are already impacting on my daily life and the livelihood of my community.”
The Cook Islands, like the other islands in this part of the Pacific, have been warned of El Nino setting in towards the end of this year. El Nino is when seawater warms, a lethal catalyst for cyclones and devastating seas. “Lagoons that once fed my mother and grandmother are no longer safe as ciguatera fish poisoning is increasing every year.” Coral bleaching has increased and the colourful coral reefs that her mother visited as a young girl are no more.
WAVE coordinator Ulamila Kurai Wragg is one of four climate change witnesses in New York raising the voice of advocacy to world leaders attending the UNGA on Climate Change, and witnessing that women as agents of change are truly making their voices heard. She is filing regular postcards from New York whenever she is near an internet terminal and with some minutes to spare.

Pacific journalist takes gender, climate change advocacy to New York

2009-09-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

Monday 14th September 2009, Rarotonga, COOK ISLANDS: In a month that is one of the busiest ever in terms of global conferencing on climate change worldwide, Pacific WAVE Media Network Coordinator Ulamila Kurai Wragg (below, with son Ratu Tevita, in Nadi during AIBD in July) heads to New York this week for some intensive lobbying and advocacy with world leaders, on climate change.

The freelance journalist who now heads the regional network for Pacific women working in the media, says the focus will be on asking leaders to take personal responsibility to sign a fair, binding and ambitious deal at December’s UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

As well as her new NGO coordinater role, Wragg heads the WAVE’ Climate Change committee, which promotes information sharing and awareness of gender issues in climate change and Pacific development. She will team up with three other women from around the world for the Global Climate Change Alliance’s (GCCA) high profile campaign in the US.
The other women from Uganda, Cataret Islands in Papua New Guinea and the Mississippi in the US will include media interviews and events running parallel with the United Nations General Assembly this month, as part of their two week campaign.
Wragg, who lives in a coastal area of the Cook Islands capital, Rarotonga, was part of a global 'climate witness' campaign featured by Greenpeace this year. As a journalist able to report 'from the inside' and travelling to the outer islands of the Cooks, she says she has been "touched and impressed" by the experiences of rural and low-income families living with the impacts of coastal erosion, and water, crop and other food security issues.
She says this has given her the conviction to speak out and use her media skills to help call attention to the growing climate change sector of the need to capture the issues of those who often don't have a voice amongst or access to the leaders who make the decisions at global meetings on the environment.
“My small islands story is just a big part of the Pacific experience. The saddest part for all of us, and especially for rural families and the poor, is that we have yet to see concrete evidence that the impact on women of all these policies is being taken into account," she says.

"At a time when the whole world is turning its attention and funding to climate change, it is critical that we seek the the great solutions women can share if only we get the space at the leaders and planning tables."

"It's ironic that the Pacific region is the most innocent in this man-made catastrophe, yet we are the ones paying the highest price,” Wragg said.
“The Copenhagen summit is around the corner and I am not seeing a good picture so I hope we get a good run out of this campaign. We may only be four women with a campaign that is one of many clamouring for attention, but we believe our voices matter. To our world leaders I say, display good leadership and let me remind you that if you do not consider our plight while you negotiate, you are essentially saying ‘heads we live, tails we die’.”
ENDS

"Creating WAVEs of change for Pacific futures"
Pacific WAVE Media Network
Women Advancing a Vision of Empowerment
www.pacificwave.googlegroups.com
Email: rarowragg@gmail.com