By Amy Fallon
President of the Kiribati Rotaract Youth Club, Miriam Moriati, is advocating for gender parity and climate stability in the Pacific.
As a 21-year-old who was born and raised in Kiribati – a small, isolated Pacific Island, which the UN has warned will become the globe’s first to be wiped out by rising sea levels – Miriam Moriati has never known anything but climate change.
The Kiribati Rotaract Youth Club president has seen children in her community die from drinking unhealthy groundwater contaminated with seawater. Meanwhile, degraded land erosion means that vegetables can’t be grown in family gardens and some, like cabbages, can cost up to $10 at the local supermarket.
So, when Miriam met Ruth Cross Kwansing OM, Kiribati’s Honourable Minister of Women, Youth, Sports and Social Affairs last year and spoke to her about starting a Rotaract club, she wanted climate change to be at its heart.
Ruth, previously a member of the Rotary Club of Melton, Vic, had returned home to Kiribati after many years away and helped found the Rotary Club of Tarawa in 2019 – the first on the island after the previous two Rotary clubs (Bairiki and Kiritimati) closed in 2015 and 2016.
Today, the Kiribati Rotaract Youth Club has more than 34 young members, the majority of them women, after starting out with just 12. This has boosted Rotary’s presence in a large area of the Pacific.
“We started off with nothing but passion; no funds and no fancy office,” says Miriam, who lives in the village of Bairik in South Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati.
PICTURED: President of the Kiribati Rotaract Youth Club Miriam Moriati.
“We held our first ever board meeting in my backyard.”
Despite its humble beginnings, within just two months Rotaract members had planted more than 2,000 mangroves on the coastlines of Bonriki Causeway, an area prone to rising sea levels.
They’ve also cleaned beaches and started to raise climate change awareness in Kiribati through video reporting.
“One of the issues here is that the locals do not know about climate change,” says Miriam. “They do not understand what climate change is and how it is affecting them, but they are living with it every day.”
To date, the club has received numerous requests from youth who want to join to help bring about positive change in Kiribati. It has also secured funding from the Worldview International Foundation – a Myanmar-based non-profit that aims to restore vital mangrove forests, protect coastlines and support biodiversity – and embarked on projects with both non-governmental and governmental organisations within Kiribati.
“Our youth are passionate and have great energy and potential, however, we lack skills, training and climate literacy,” says Miriam.
“On an island where resources are scarce, providing us with funds and sponsoring us can help fill those gaps.”
PICTURED: Members of the Kiribati Rotaract Youth Club have planted more than 2,000 mangroves on the coastlines of Bonriki Causeway, an area prone to rising sea levels.
Addressing gender disparity is also a significant focus for the club.
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is #AccelerateAction. Currently, it will take until 2158, or five generations, to reach full gender parity, according to research the World Economic Forum.
“In Kiribati, some girls still don’t attend school because they are not supported to do so,” says Miriam, pointing to a saying ‘aine tenan bwai n nako’, which translates to ‘women are things that will leave’. It means a daughter will leave her family once she is married, while the sons will stay at home.
“Therefore, a family’s focus is making sure their sons are successful as they will benefit from them,” says Miriam. “The daughters, on the other hand, are kept at home carrying out household chores to prepare them for marriage.”
Miriam, who studied human resource management and law at the University of the South Pacific, works as the team leader for Kindling Kiribati, a nonprofit that supports gender equality by providing micro loans for women to start their own businesses.
Within Rotaract, Miriam tries to make sure that all women participating in their events know the importance and the value of what they’re doing and can have a say in their own experiences.
She credits Ruth – who she describes as her number one role model – for much of her drive and dedication.
“I think Ruth would be my biggest inspiration in Kiribati, a Rotary president who has done a lot and makes sure that she inspires other women as well,” says Miriam.
MAIN PICTURE: The club is advocating for gender parity and climate stability in the Pacific.