Growing a Pacific culture of speaking out

STIGMA AND DISCRIMINATION IN SMALL ISLANDS: USING CULTURAL APPROACHES

n Presentation to the Commonwealth Panel

n Ending AIDS stigma: men and women working together

n UN CSW 53 Session March 3, 2009, conference room 2

Kia Orana tatou katoatoa, Gud morning tru, and a warm Pacific sunshine welcome to all of us here today. I would like to thank those whose behind the scenes efforts have brought us to the global stage of the UN CSW. To the Commonwealth Foundation and in particular the Pan Commonwealth Civil Society Network on HIV and AIDS, for whom PIAF is the regional focal point for the Pacific, I thank you for your acknowledgement of the value and ownership we bring to and we take from these spaces

Here in 2009, under a theme which seeks to share our best practices from the Pacific when overcoming AIDS stigma and discrimination, I just want to pause to reflect on how far we have come in the last decade; especially as we prepare to join the worldwide International women’s day celebrations on March 8. As we explore the CSW theme of shared responsibilities and care-giving in the context of HIV and AIDS, it is now just over 10 years since the first Pacific Islander to publicly declare their HIV status did so, in Tahiti, to a regional convention of journalists which she was herself attending as a graduate of the University of the South Pacific. For Maire Bopp Dupont, the public declaration of her condition marked a historic moment which broke through the walls of silence and denial around HIV and AIDS and continues to reveal the stigma and discrimination holding those walls of silence and shame together.

In the decade since that moment, Maire has gone from Pacific journalist to global advocate. In the same timeframe, the Pacific region has stepped up its response to the epidemic, with a mixed bag of results.

Support free speech for a free and prosperous Fiji!

PFF MEDIA ALERT

Members of PFF Pacific Freedom Forum have launched a call for solidarity for anyone who believes, as we do, that free speech is the cornerstone to growth and prosperity, to sign our petition supporting freedoms of speech in Fiji.

Signing the petition is open to members of the media - and anyone else who supports freedoms of speech in Fiji - a hub and centre for regional agencies working for nations and people of the Pacific.

As announced last week by PFF, the petition "Support Free Speech for a Prosperous Fiji" is aimed at all Pacific Islands leaders, not just those in Fiji.

The plan is to collect as many signatures as possible as part of our PFF campaigns to celebrate World Press Freedom Day on May 3, 2009.

The theme of WPFD this year is especially appropriate celebrating the role of the media, promoting cultures of mutual understanding and diversity.

Signing the petition is a reminder for regional leaders when debating options for the troubled republic - that freedoms of speech are fundamental to futures of any successful society - not an optional extra.

PETITION LINK
To view the petition and sign on, click here http://www.gopetition.com/online/26992.html

Please forward this information as widely as possible!

FURTHER INFO ON PFF http://www.pacificfreedomforum.blogspot.com/ . . .

Latitudes...and attitudes

Postcards from the Pacific

A Dunedin postcard in spring , or the corner of the postcard that has you walking through the University campus, feels like walking through a Harry Potter movie. But ah, spring is in the air -- a change in environmental mood that has definitely lifted my own. All through winter rain, fog, closed down airports and cancelled flights waiting to leave the winter rain and fog, rewashed laundry and soggy not quite dry clothes, coughing kids and midnight shivers, snowy mountains and close to zero days, my mantra has been: winter is a blessing cos it makes you appreciate the sun when it does come! SO hem nao, bring on the sun I say, bring it on! I don't give a toss about the kilos I piled on when it comes to losing all the layers of clothing and wondering where the extra tires came from. I have watched enough Oprah and Dr Phil to give me enough self-realisation that I am more than the sum on the scales.
Well...maybe when I am having a fit over all the clothes I can NO LONGER fit at the Warehouse summer sales -- but hey, thats a few months away; and by the time I rev up into a state that gets my arse out the door...well, it will be winter again, won't it?!

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Pacific musings...

RIP: Note for Bob (Robert Worthington)

Your leaving
rippling on ocean surfaces
my sadness
cresting each tiny wave
dreaming its way to distant shores

Your leaving
revives my story
and this memory links us:
I anchored my inexperienced vaka
to your ocean voyaging Hokule'a

aimed for stars, dared to vision
rode through storms, this time
of my own choosing.
you gifted me
these things

Your leaving
reminding me
of other voyagers
yet to find their way
Your wave
of aroa still finding shore after shore after shore.