Date & Time
9:00am, 19 July 2024 - 11:00am, 19 July 2024Location
About the event
This event marks the final of four Regional Conversations ahead of the 2024 Commonwealth People’s Forum in Samoa. We are inviting civil society experts from the Pacific to share their views.
Participants will contribute concrete recommendations to address some of the most urgent issues of our time—climate justice, health justice, and freedom of expression—and establish a renewed vision for the Commonwealth.
The contributions shared will help to shape this year’s People’s Forum, the largest gathering of civil society in the Commonwealth. The People’s Forum takes place alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and offers a platform for civil society to challenge, engage and ultimately inspire change.
Our Regional Conversations—taking place across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Pacific—are part of a wider effort to influence the proceedings at the Heads of Government Meeting. The findings of the Conversations—combined with those from international surveys and the People’s Forum itself—will be summarised and presented to decision-makers over the course of CHOGM.
This event will open with a summary of our global launch event held in November 2023, and then a panel of leading practitioners and advocates will present their regional perspectives. We will then move into breakout sessions where attendees will be able to present concrete and innovative ideas that can create a more resilient and sustainable common future.
Please note that this is an invitation-only event. If you want to contribute ideas and help shape the Commonwealth People’s Forum and Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa in October 2024, join our Path to Samoa: Online Consultation.
Guests
A visionary leader and advocate for climate justice, Fenton Lutunatabua, haling from the Fiji Islands, is a multifaceted climate organizer whose work transcends boundaries encompassing photography, literary media, and film. As a facilitator and trainer, he empowers others to become agents of change in their communities. Lutunatabua, is a renowned climate activist leading by example as a founder of the Pacific Climate Warriors, a movement that has sparked a wave of environmental consciousness across the Pacific and beyond. In addition to his remarkable activism, Lutunatabua is a trailblazer in the realm of podcasting in the Pacific, using this medium to amplify Pacific voices in the fight against climate change. Lutunatabua is currently working with 350.org as the Deputy Head of Regions. He is also the Founder of Beyond the Narrative, a creative agency in Fiji, that is dedicated to unlocking the radical imagination of Pacific communities empowering them to shape their own futures.
Mary Rokonadravu is a Fijian fiction and nonfiction writer, and two-time winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific Region) – 2015 and 2022. She was also shortlisted in 2017. Her works have been published in Granta, adda, and Synkretic; and appeared in anthologies by Penguin Random House (Vintage), the University of London Press, Northern Arizona University, and the University of the South Pacific. In 2023, she was awarded the International Writing Program Fellowship at the University of Iowa and the Oregon Institute of Creative Research Fellowship in Writing, both in the United States. She is currently working on finalising literary projects from these fellowships.
Freda Catherine Willie, a 45-year-old born with a disability, is a passionate advocate and dedicated professional in the field of Disability Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). A wheelchair user, Freda has been making significant strides in her role as a Disability Inclusive DRR Officer at the Vanuatu Disability Promotion and Advocacy Organisation since 2021.
Joseph Sikulu is a Tongan man from Ha’apai and Vaini in Tongatapu and grew up on Dharug country, Western Sydney. He is an Environmental, Cultural and Queer activist who has work over the last 10 years to build a movement of strong Pacific Climate Warriors across Pacific communities both on island and in the diaspora. He is a Climate Change campaigner and advocate, the Managing Director for 350.org Pacific, serves on the Secretariat for the Pacific Climate Warriors and is a Pacific Champion for the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty.
Discussion
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