NEWSPAGE 03 February
2010

(Photos: Department of Labour)

NEW ZEALAND: Pacific communities cautioned about immigration scams

SAMOA: Continuing to help Samoa - it’s time for trauma recovery
Source: Trauma Recovery Team NZ Press Release via Scoop Independent News

Whilst the world currently focuses on the disaster and ruin in Haiti, there is still tragedy in our own backyard. Four months on from the tsunami that hit the Southern Coast of Samoa on 29 September 2009, many of the thousands of people affected are still suffering. The calamity that happened that day is still being played out in the minds of the Samoan people on a daily basis.

Samoa is experiencing an epidemic of emotional ills and nursing teams and international grief workers are still under pressure to keep up with the workload. It was reported late last year that many communities have taken to the hills and are fearful of rebuilding in coastal areas.

At the invitation of the Samoan Ministry of Health, a team of New Zealand and international therapists (www.traumarecoveryteam.org.nz) will travel to Samoa on 25 February, on a voluntary basis, for seven days to train local mental health workers and counsellors, and work one-on-one with those requiring help.

The techniques the team employs have been shown to be the most effective solution to treating PTSD in war zones, and following the 9-11 events in the US.
 

(Photos: Robin White)

AUSTRALIA: Prestigious exhibition presents “New Garden”
Source: Baha'i World News Service

Traditional Pacific island bark cloth stenciled with designs depicting a vision of a "New Garden" was one of the artworks commissioned for a prestigious exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery.

The sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art - APT6 - is now well into its four-month run and features works by some of the best-known artists of the Pacific region.

Prominent New Zealand artist Robin White was invited to participate, with organizers mentioning a possible collaboration with a tapa artist from Fiji. Eventually Mrs. White proposed that she work with two Fijians, Leba Toki and Bale Jione.

All three artists are Baha'is and used their vision of a future society to inspire their work.

"What we wanted to do was to present our vision of what Fiji could be - and what it will be," said Mrs. White.

In Fiji, she explained, almost all of the world's great religions are represented by a significant portion of the population - Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, and a small but growing Baha'i community.

"That makes it special," she said. "Somehow we wanted to get that idea across."

The tapa - or masi, as the Fijians call the craft of tapa and the plant from which it is made - is traditionally made for a wedding, and the artists indeed used that concept.

"The idea was not about a literal wedding between two individuals but rather the idea of a marriage of cultures - namely the indigenous and Indian cultures that constitute contemporary Fijian society - connected by bonds of love and respect," Mrs. White said.

In the end, many elements were incorporated into their tapa. For the main piece, a vision of the Shrine of the Bab in the Holy Land and its surrounding terraces was combined with images of importance to Fijians.
An unusual collaboration

For Mrs. Toki, the mere act of a Fijian like herself collaborating with a New Zealander to create artwork on tapa was a breakthrough.

"I knew that only the Fijians can do the tapa," she said, remembering her scepticism when Mrs. White first contacted her for an earlier project. "I was thinking, 'How can we work together?'"

For Mrs. White, it was during her travels in the Pacific that she had gotten the idea of a collaboration. Already a well-known artist in other media, she had known about the tapa produced in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. But when she saw a particularly beautiful piece hanging in the transit lounge in the Nadi airport, she decided she must learn the technique for making it.

In Fiji, she met Mrs. Toki at a Baha'i gathering and later at the Toki residence noticed some beautiful tapa on the wall.

"Who did these?" Mrs. White asked.

When she discovered that Mrs. Toki herself was the artist, an idea was born. At first Mrs. Toki was reluctant to work jointly - she had never heard of the type of tapa she did being created by anyone other than Fijians. But when she discovered that Mrs. White indeed was an artist, she was willing to give it a go. And when they began collaborating, she found the relationship rewarding.

"Working together is very powerful," Mrs. Toki says now. "Different races, both giving ideas."

She said a pattern of consultation, action, and reflection - familiar to all three women through their Baha'i activities - became a key part of the creation of their artwork for the APT6 exhibition.

The trio completed their new work several months ago and traveled to Brisbane in early December for the opening of APT6 and to participate in stimulating conversations with other artists from throughout the Asian Pacific region.

The exhibition runs through 5 April.

In Fiji, Mrs. Toki lives in Lautoka, known as Sugar City because of a large sugar mill located in the town. The idea of sugar became one of the starting points for the three artists as they developed concepts for their commissioned work.

"Sugar (became) a metaphor for the sweetening of relationships between people," Mrs. White said, explaining how their thinking progressed.

"The real Sugar City is the city of God," she continued.

This image led the artists to picture the Baha'i gardens and terraces on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel - gardens known for their beauty and perfection and thus symbolic of a transformed society, Mrs. White said.

"That seemed like a visual framework," she said.

The main tapa they made shows the Baha'i shrine on Mount Carmel with its terraced gardens. At the base is a sugar plantation. Taro - a food staple in the Pacific that is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants - is depicted as growing on the terraces.

That tapa is a large wall hanging, 12 by 8 feet, and is accompanied in the exhibition by a second piece for the floor. The artists also created other elements, including the garments for the "wedding," that also will remain part of the collection at the Queensland Art Gallery.

They named the work "New Garden" - "Teitei Vou" in the Fijian language - words taken from the writings of Baha'u'llah.

The art of the tapa

Mrs. White said the artistic decoration of bark cloth remains part of the culture in Fiji.

"Young girls in the Lau group of islands in Fiji, where Leba and Bale come from, all do this kind of tapa work," she explained, "and some become skilful at doing specialized aspects of it such as designing and cutting stencils. In the village setting, the women all work together. If someone is getting married, the women get together to make the tapa."

"It's a sacred cloth," Mrs. White said. Traditionally it has been used for various occasions and now, with the European influence, is used even more extensively - for tablecloths and other items, for example.

For the artwork for APT6, Mrs. Jione acquired the raw material for making the tapa on her native island of Moce and took it to her current home in Suva, the capital of Fiji which is located on the island of Viti Levu.

There she and her husband worked together to beat it into sheets before taking it across the island to Lautoka where Mrs Toki lives. Mrs. White then joined them in Lautoka for a few months - Fiji is a four-hour flight from New Zealand - and the three artists worked together to make the designs and do the painting.

Mrs. Jione said the stenciling is much easier now than in the old days. Her grandmother, for example, used banana leaves for the stencils, but they were difficult to work with and not very durable. Now the artists use X-ray film, and the stencils can be used over and over.

"Because of film, many more people can do the painting," she said.

In the early stages of the APT6 project, Mrs. White spent time reading about Fiji as part of her preparation.

"I did a lot of research into the history," she said. She discovered how the Fiji of today is a result of indentured labourers being brought from India to work on the sugar plantations, and how Mahatma Gandhi supported efforts to bring the human trafficking to an end.

In recognition of this period of history and the suffering associated with it, the size of the main tapa - 12 by 8 feet - was made in the dimensions of the living quarters issued to the Indian labourers who were obliged to live three to a room.

"Everything in the artwork has significance," Mrs. White said.

More about the APT6 exhibition

The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art - now in its sixth edition - runs through early April in the Gallery of Modern Art and the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane. The exhibition includes 313 artworks by some 160 artists from 25 countries.

This year's show includes for the first time artists from North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Tibet, Cambodia, and Myanmar - a fact that Mrs. White finds significant. The presence of North Korean artists is particularly interesting, she said.

"To see their work included in the APT seems to me a very important thing," she noted.

The Triennial, she said, brings together artists from diverse backgrounds living in the world's largest land mass and scattered across the world's largest ocean.

"I am fascinated with how culture and belief informs their work," she said of the participating artists. Some of the pieces have a deeply spiritual aspect, she said, and some reflect social or political issues.

She noted that a work that is overtly Baha'i perhaps is more accepted and appreciated here than in many other venues.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said collaboration among artists of different countries was a hallmark of the exhibition.

"Much of APT6 draws on the extensive network of relationships, within the region and beyond, that has always been integral to the Triennial's spirit," he said.

In addition to the tapa created by the three Baha'is of New Zealand and Fiji, some of the collaborative art projects in APT6 include "The Mekong," a collection of works from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar, and "Pacific Reggae," a selection of Pacific reggae music videos, concert clips, documentaries, and performances.

For information on APT6, go to www.qag.qld.gov.au/apt6

For the page about the three tapa artists, go to
http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/apt6/artists/robin_white,_bale_jione_-and-_leba_toki

Photo Captions:

Photo 1 - Tapa artists Bale Jione and Robin White work on the intricate patterning for the bark cloth. The third artist, Leba Toki, was out of camera range here.

Photo 2 - Fijian artists Leba Toki and Bale Jione flank Robin White as the trio poses during a break from their work on the exquisite bark-cloth art commissioned for the exhibition known as "APT6."

Photo 3 - A wedding of cultures was the theme for the design of the bark-cloth art created by three Baha'i artists.
 

(Photo: Bruce Asato / Honolulu Advertiser)

HAWAII: University of Hawaii hits record enrolment for Spring semester
Source: Honolulu Advertiser

The recession and a lousy job market continue to fuel enrolment at the University of Hawai'i, which yesterday reported its highest-ever student count for a spring semester.

The university said it enrolled a total of 55,761 student at its 10 campuses statewide, a 9.4 percent increase from the 2009 spring semester. At the Mānoa campus, spring enrolment stood at 19,286 students, up 2.8 percent.

UH recorded its highest enrolment ever in the fall 2009 semester, with 57,945 students.

Officials attribute the jump in enrolment largely to a sour economy and rising unemployment, which stood at 6.5 percent in December, nearly triple what is was five years ago.

"Often it's the case that enrolment increases when the economy is down and decreases when the economy is up," said Linda Johnsrud, UH vice president for academic planning and policy. "For many people, college is a good alternative to being unemployed or underemployed. It's an advantage to pursue training and education during those down periods."

That same sour economy is forcing UH to undertake program and wage cuts to help offset a budget deficit last reported at $76 million.

Johnsrud acknowledged the growth is coming at a time when UH is least able to handle it financially, but said campuses are doing their best to accommodate students.

The newest students include a mix of recent high school graduates, workers trying to improve their career skills, people returning to college for graduate degrees and the unemployed hoping to improve their job prospects.

There is no clear picture whether students are flocking to specific programs, she said.

"They tend to be all over the place. We have graduate students seeking their master's, students in areas where there's a shortage, such as teaching, nursing and social work, and business is popular, but so is psychology," Johnsrud said.

A six-year schedule of tuition increases that doubles the cost of attending UH doesn't seem to have discouraged enrolment. Johnsrud said that's probably because the university quadrupled financial aid to offset the incremental tuition hikes, which started in 2006.

Tuition and fees at Mānoa this semester for a resident general undergraduate come to about $3,600 for 12 credit hours. Out-of-state tuition and fees for the same course are about $9,630.

The poor economy hasn't affected the percentage of nonresident students in the UH system, which has remained steady at about 30 percent, according to Johnsrud.

She said she had expected an increase in enrolment by California residents because state colleges there are turning away applicants and UH tuition remains a relative bargain.

UH-Hilo's spring enrolment is 3,864 students, a 5.1 percent gain over last spring, while at UH-West O'ahu, there are 1,278 students, an increase of 11.5 percent.

Enrolment at the system's seven community colleges rose to 31,333, an increase of 14.5 percent.

Windward Community College, with 2,305 students, saw the greatest percentage increase in spring enrolment — 24.3 percent. The campus, which opened in 1972, surpassed the 2,000-student mark for the first time last semester.

Windward Chancellor Doug Dykstra agrees that a weak job market is boosting enrollment, but also said the community college has been able to take advantage of a state program to open more entry-level classes.

A 2007 enrolment growth funding initiative defrays some of the costs of adding classes at UH community colleges.

"The enrolment growth funding enabled us to provide classes that students need at a time when they might otherwise be iced out of them," Dykstra said. "It's a case of 'if you offer it they will come.'"

The chancellor said Windward Community College offered 22 percent more classes in the 2008-09 academic year than in the previous year, and another 22 percent more classes this year.

He said the enrolment drop from the fall to spring semesters historically has been between 5 percent and 12 percent, but Windward lost only 21 students between semesters this year.

"That's phenomenal. What that bespeaks is that there are an awful lot of retention students, as well as that word is going out quickly by the coconut wireless that we are offering the classes you need and you won't have the frustration of searching for empty seats," Dykstra said.

Windward Community College hopes to attract even more students by developing a full-blown night program that offers students a guaranteed three-year class schedule toward an associate degree, he said.

Photo Caption: At Kapi'olani Community College, this semester's enrolment is up 11.1 percent over spring of last year.
 

TONGA: UAA student building Tonga library
Source: Anchorage Daily News

For Kato Ha'unga, too many books is not enough, in fact she's a little obsessed.

She has books piled in a bin outside her cubicle at work. She has books stacked in boxes under her desk. She has heaps of books in her apartment and bundles of books in her car. She has boxes and boxes and more boxes of books stacked in a corner of a friend's office. Children's books, history books, computer books, science books, memoirs, biographies, fiction, non-fiction. From math to romance.

Ha'unga can't say no to a book.

But then these are books with a purpose. If she can make it happen - and she's confident she can - these are books bound for Tonga. A tsunami of books inspired by a tsunami.

Ha'unga, a 26-year-old economics student at the University of Alaska Anchorage, has amassed more than 3,000 book so far with hopes of building a library in her ancestral homeland. The Northern Lights Library project, as she calls it, comes in the wake of last fall's deadly tsunami.

On Sept. 29, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake beneath the South Pacific triggered a series of tsunamis that hit the Samoan and Tongan islands. Scientists in New Zealand calculated the highest at 46 feet. The monster waves swept away villages, killed more than 200 people and left thousands homeless.

"When I heard about the tsunami I cried here in my office, and I asked myself a question: 'What can I do to help my country?'" Ha'unga said.

She wanted to do something lasting rather than fleeting. Books came to mind. Because with books comes knowledge, and knowledge can change lives, and the world. So she's building a library, one book at a time, on the Tongan island of Ha'apai, where she says there are school libraries, but no public ones. An English library has its place in her country, she says. Tonga has a 98 percent literacy rate, and Tongan and English are the country's official languages.

Ha'unga started with a few children's books, and the idea took off from there.

"This is the beginning of how I wanted to reach out to Tonga, these four kids right here," she said, nodding toward a photo of her four young cousins, dressed partially in black. The kids have been in mourning since losing their mother last spring.

"They always ask for books," she said. "Every time I go to Tonga, I take books with me."

She went from collecting books for these four kids to collecting books for all kids and adults on Ha'apai, the hub for 51 smaller, outlying islands.

Tonga, an archipelago between New Zealand and Hawaii, is comprised of 169 islands, 36 of which are uninhabited. The population of the entire nation is just 120,000, less than half the size of Anchorage. It's governed by a king. The economy is largely agricultural; one in four citizens lives under the poverty level, according to U.S. government statistics.

Ha'unga's uncle, now raising his four children on his own, is working the Tonga end of the project, and has secured a place for her books until a permanent location can be found. In the meantime, nearly 6,000 miles to the north, she's been doing presentations all around Anchorage asking for book donations and raising money to cover shipping costs.

The people of Ha'apai really appreciate what she's doing, her uncle, Latiume Kaufusi, writes via e-mail from Tonga.

"I feel proud of her. She stands up ... for this country."

Ha'unga was born in Anchorage, but was raised by her grandmother in Tonga after her parents divorced. She returned for a year, attending Clark Middle School, then went back to Tonga, where she graduated from high school.

Her uncle encouraged her to return to Alaska to continue her studies.

"He tells me, 'Go, go. Because you're the future.'"

She's been going ever since. In addition to being a student, she works a full-time job on campus with TRIO/Upward Bound, support services for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. She fills what downtime she has mentoring others, serving on an anti-gang task force, volunteering for this and that, most recently as a Tongan interpreter at the free legal clinic on Martin Luther King Day. With the library project on top of everything else she has going, you have to wonder, when does she sleep?

Clare Stockert, development director for Anchorage Public Libraries, is among the many who support what Ha'unga is doing.

"I'm so excited about this project," she said. "Unlike so many of the world problems that are so hard to solve, this is a problem we have the capability to solve - getting books to a library in Tonga.

"She's fabulous. She has so much energy and she's so much fun to work with. It's really an honor to help her out and be part of her team."

Lately, Ha'unga has been so busy running around collecting books and videos donated for her library that sometimes there's no time for lunch. The books keep on coming, armfuls and box-loads at a time. Books, books and more books.

The thing is, the more you get her talking about this project of hers, the more you realize that every single one of those books helps deaden the pain.

It's about her father. He lives in Fiji, but was in Samoa when the tsunami struck. She hasn't heard from him since.

"We always e-mail every day," she says. "And he always calls my phone. After the tsunami I never heard from him. I kept e-mailing every day. 'Daddy, where are you?'

"I don't want to think he's dead. I feel like maybe he's on one of the islands that has no phone.

"I want to do this library project so I don't have to think about where my father is. I stay busy every day not to think about him.

"I miss him dearly."
 

(Photos: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme)

WORLDWIDE: World Wetlands Day highlights the importance of wetlands
Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme Press Release

Statement from David Sheppard, Director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), on the occasion of World Wetlands Day.

World Wetlands Day, on the second day of February each year, marks the day the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971. This annual event provides us with an opportunity to raise and strengthen awareness of the importance of wetlands throughout the world and in our region. Furthermore, with the International Year of Biodiversity kicking off across the world, including here in our Pacific islands, we are reminded yet again of the wondrous natural systems that combine to make life on our planet possible.

The 2nd of February, however, should have special significance for any one of us who has ever swam in a river, paddled a canoe through some mangroves, collected crabs or shellfish from mudflats, dived or snorkeled over a brightly coloured coral reef, or simply marveled at the beauty of a reef heron awaiting the arrival of its next meal. In fact, for all of us who call the Pacific islands our home, the 2nd of February is a time to celebrate a very special part of our natural environment - the “wetlands”.

Wetlands include our rivers, coral reefs, mangroves, mudflats, marshes and seagrass beds. In the Pacific islands, they provide for us tremendous economic and conservation benefits through fisheries production, flood control, shoreline stabilization, maintenance of coastal water quality and provision of recreational opportunities. Wetlands also house extensive biodiversity, ranging from algae and lichens to plants, insects, crustaceans, birds, fish and corals.

As we reflect on the immense economic, social and ecological value of our wetlands, we are also painfully aware of the rapid rate at which many of our wetlands are being degraded and disappearing. Wetlands are often wrongfully thought of as wastelands and are subject to land reclamation projects where they are filled in to provide more building space. In other areas, they are used as waste dumping grounds resulting in toxic and harmful substances entering the waterways and ocean. Furthermore, wetlands tend to be over-used through excessive withdrawals of water or through the removal of key species from the area.

Losing our wetlands means losing the valuable services they provide and this almost always impacts negatively on humans. Tourism, food security and coastal protection are often the most obvious losers when wetlands die. In small islands, the poorest people, often live very near to and depend directly on wetland ecosystems for their livelihood. They are also the least able to cope with the impacts of wetland loss.

Climate change adds another dimension to the continuing destruction of our wetlands but it brings a greater imperative for their preservation. Across the Pacific, there is growing evidence that climate change is resulting in more frequent cyclones and storm surges, coastal erosion, loss of fish breeding grounds and reduced water quality on many small islands.

However, it is also becoming clear that better management and protection of our wetland ecosystems could help islands build resilience and adapt better to the impacts of our changing climate. Strong mangrove areas, for example, act as highly effective buffers against storm surges and cyclonic waves; healthy coral reefs and seagrass beds provide breeding grounds for fish, thus strengthening food security of coastal dwelling populations; healthy and strong coral reefs are also the first line of defense against storm surges and waves associated with the changing climate. The interaction between healthy coral reefs and healthy mangroves can therefore not be discounted as a major defensive asset of our islands, and one that we need to protect.

This year’s theme for World Wetlands Day is “Caring for Wetlands - An answer to climate change”. For the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), this could not be more appropriate. Protecting and conserving the diversity of life, including conserving our valuable wetlands and adapting to and building resilience to climate change impacts are inextricably interlinked. SPREP recognises that we cannot realistically address one without the other and, more importantly, that human activity is as much to blame as climate change for the continuing destruction of our natural ecosystems.

This year, the International Year of Biodiversity, presents us with an opportunity to take stock of our ongoing contribution to nature conservation and work towards building island resilience to the ever-increasing impacts of climate change. It may seem all too simple, but if we strengthen our commitment to conserving mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds; improving waste management and preventing marine pollution; and to reducing our consumption of fossil fuels, we have hope that we can save our wetlands and possibly set our islands in good stead to withstand the impacts of climate change.

This World Wetlands Day, I challenge every person living in our islands, no matter who you are or what you do, to step up and make one change in your life for the well-being of the unique water-based environments in which we live.