Marshall Islands Youth and Education Highlights

Asia-Pacific Population Journal Paints Mixed Picture of Pacific Sub-region - Marshall Islands among the highest teenage fertility rates in the world.

Kids Struggle in Palau - 25 Marshallese students at PCC.

A Group of Once Pristine Islands Faces an Environmental Crisis - 20 JICA volunteers working on health and education projects.

World Wetlands Day 2008 -- Marshall Islands - Majuro and Jaluit presentations.

UNIFEM:IWD Breakfasts - financing the Marshall Islands’ WUTMI.

NTAC: Dr. Kim-Rupnow Receives 5-year U.S. DOE Grant - $1.5 million grant for teacher training in Hawai‘i, American Samoa, and RMI.

Connecting Globally: The Marshall Islands Story Project - CMI Jan.- Feb. '08 Newsletter

Comedy of Errors 2008 Marshall Islands Trailer - Video Introduction to the Youth Bridge Global Marshall Islands Project 2008.

UNDP: With a total population of about 34 million and very diverse levels of fertility – from 1.2 children per woman in the Northern Mariana Islands to 4.6 in Samoa – the Pacific sub-region needs to redouble its efforts to tackle crucial issues such as maternal mortality, low contraceptive prevalence rate and teenage fertility in the pursuit of its Millennium Development Goals (MDG), according to an article published in the latest issue of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal. The Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands have among the highest teenage fertility rates in the world, warns one of the articles. It says that “this is particularly worrisome as approximately 60 per cent of the population is aged less than 25 in these countries and evidence is emerging that unsafe sexual behaviour among young people is highly prevalent.”

PCC:Most students who go to colleges in US-affiliated states such as the Marshall Islands and Palau qualify for the US federally- funded scholarship program Pell Grant. While Pell Grant is adequate to cover tuition costs, an official from the Marshall Islands Scholarship, Grant and Loan Board office told the Journal that in the past students will apply for RMI scholarship to supplement their living expenses. To qualify, the Journal was told that all students need to do, if they're current college students, is each year submit an application form and each semester turn in their transcripts to the Majuro-based scholarship office. The official said the problems the Palau based Marshallese students are facing was addressed last year when the MISGLB office sent an official delegation comprising of then chairman of the MISLGB board Amenta Matthew, board member Lanny Kabua and MISLGB director Juliet Anitok who flew to Palau specifically to address the Marshallese students and inform them of what they need to do to qualify for the RMI scholarship. For the current school year, the official said that only two Marshallese students in Palau have applied and are RMI scholarship recipients.

MBT: The 2008 Micronesian Basketball Tournament is in danger of being canceled after only two countries have confirmed joining the annual games, which will be held in Kolonia, Pohnpei.Jim Tobin, who co-chairs the 2008 MBT local organizing committee with Castro Joab, said only Guam and host Pohnpei have confirmed sending men's and women's teams after submitting their requirements before the March 14 preliminary registration. The CNMI, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, and the other three states of the Federated States of Micronesia-Chuuk, Kosrae, and Yap-have not yet pre-registered or are still undecided if they are going to compete or not. He advised the other member federations in Micronesia to email him as soon as possible if they have no plans of joining. “We do understand everyone's financial problems and the high cost of Travel.” Basketball Association of the Northern Mariana Islands president Elias Rangamar would like to send both the men's and women's teams to the tournament if it would only cost them the airfare. “The last MBT in Guam, teams had to pay for airfare only. I think the time is too short to fundraise if teams are required to shoulder all costs.”

JICA: "There are still many people who throw their garbage into the sea," Education Minister Wilfred Kendall explained recently. But this garbage does not decompose.
Cleaning up the garbage. The solution in such circumstances is summed up within environmental circles by ‘the three Rs'—reduce, re-use, recycle, but according to Tetsuhiro Ike, an Oceania specialist with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), recycling is economically impractical. The agency is concentrating on 'reduce and re-use.' There are around 20 JICA volunteers working in the islands on a variety of health and education projects. And recently, the agency began promoting environmental education. Volunteers are working in other Pacific islands on similar projects. "First and foremost, we have to change peoples' way of thinking," Tetsuhiro Ike said. "We have to convince them through education that they cannot just throw plastic bottles into the sea anymore. We also want them to reduce their garbage and to reuse things they currently throw away."

UNIFEM: Donations received from IWD events throughout New Zealand enable UNIFEM NZ to continue financing the Marshall Islands’ foremost women’s NGO, WUTMI (Women United Together in the Marshall Islands), as they conclude the second phase of mentoring workshops in their innovative “Gender Equality in Decision Making and Leadership” project and move on to the very necessary follow-up processes of monitoring and evaluation. This is taking place in communities, large and small, on all the widely scattered inhabited atolls and islands of the Marshall Islands. Carefully designed and facilitated discussion forums on women’s rights and gender equality, civics and voter education in the lead up to the November 2007 elections were well attended by local men as well as women. Further, the translation of the Marshall Islands Constitution into Marshallese language and its general distribution countrywide allowed access to it by all and this ‘first’ was much appreciated. Mentors reported animated dialogue….

RAMSAR: A community public awareness and consultation meeting was held at Ajeltake Community for the purpose of establish a community coastal conservation area in said village. Representatives from EPA including our Conservatoin Officer, David Tibon, held the meeting with the people, giving a PowerPoint presentation on the expected benefits from said program, roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders, and EPA roles in assisting the community in public awareness. information exchange, and development of a management plan. The student members and their teachers of the Jaluit High School Health and Environment Club visited two elementary schools on Jaluit Atoll to give presentation on World Wetlands Day. The visits were so successful that all students and teachers (about 230) from these schools attended the presentations given by the high school students. Main issues discussed in the presentation include the following: Wetlands and coral reefs, Impact of Global Warming, ODS Depletion, and Solid Waste and Recycling. Education Field Trip: Student members of the Health and Environment Club toured the Jaluit Mangrove.

CMI: Students at CMI have been offered an unusual opportunity to participate in a class that connects them to both students in Maryland and also re-connects them with their culture here in the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands Story Project class is one of the outcomes of a National Parks Service grant authored by Ron Tanner, chair of the Writing Department at Loyola College in Maryland. Tanner is spending the spring semester here at CMI to help get the pilot program off the ground. Students who enroll in the class actually signed up for two classes, one of which was the story project class where they will be learning how to both become better story tellers and also collecting stories. The second class is a web publishing class where students will be creating a web site where the stories that they collect will eventually be posted. Sharing Stories During the first part of the class, students are telling stories and sharing them with other students who are training to become writing center tutors at Loyola. “The Loyola students are not tutoring the CMI students,” Tanner stressed. “They are students who are interested in other writers and interested in how others learn in other cultures. They are learning from the CMI students.”

NCAT: Dr. Weol Soon Kim-Rupnow, National Technical Assistance Center (NTAC-AAPI) Project Director, recently received another five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, valued at almost $1.5 million. The grant is for the "ACE for English Language Learners’ Literacy: Professional Development Program." The program will provide training to teachers and teachers’ aides in Hawai‘i, American Samoa, and the Marshall Islands. The goal is to provide high-quality professional-development activities for improved academic achievement and enhanced English skills and motivation for learners of English as a Second Language. The training will give students supplementary literacy tutoring with cultural support, emphasizing a feedforward philosophy that ensures high levels of success, and boosts self-efficacy and enjoyment of reading.The project will be housed at the Center on Disability Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, in collaboration with the Hawai‘i Department of Education, the American Samoa Department of Education, and the Marshall Islands Ministry of Education. Congratulations to Dr. Kim-Rupnow.

YOUTHBRIDGE: An international team of volunteers will facilitate the production of Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors" with a cast of 30 high-school students aged between 14 and 20 over an intensive 10 week casting, rehearsal and training program starting in early February 2008. The script will be translated into the local language, leaving major speeches in English. The play will be adapted and will integrate aspects of traditional Marshallese oral histories, music, and dance. Rehearsals will be held on five evenings a week at the High School of the Marshall Islands for two hours per session. Further rehearsals will held on three weekends nearer the performance date.