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Showing 9 of 385 news items in Culture & Community

Culture & CommunityOctober 27, 2025

Pasifika, Māori called to reclaim ocean tradition and safety culture to reduce drowning rates

Excerpt from rnz.co.nz A water safety advocate is urging Pacific and Māori men to restore respect and connection with the ocean after a coroner found that safety lapses contributed to a fatal boating incident near Auckland. The Coroner's report, released this week, details the drowning of 51-year-old Tēvita Moeakiola, who died after his fibreglass boat capsized near Bucklands Beach in June 2022. Moeakiola, a carpenter and church leader from Manurewa, was described as a humble and generous man who loved fishing. He was on a trip with his brother-in-law, Pita Setefano, and workmate Tevita Havili when the boat's engine slowed down and waves began to flood the vessel. The men were thrown overboard as the bow lifted and the boat overturned. While the others managed the 30-minute swim to shore, Moeakiola, a confident swimmer, did not make it. His body was recovered the following day.

Culture & CommunityOctober 17, 2025

The Philippines devastated by three major disasters in eight days

Excerpt from care.org Manila, Philippines, October 3, 2025 — In less than 10 days, the Philippines has been hit by three major disasters, a destructive earthquake and two powerful tropical cyclones, leaving communities reeling and responders racing to assess the damage and save lives. On September 22, Tropical Cyclone Ragasa, locally known as Super Typhoon Nando, made landfall in a in the northernmost part of the country. Four days later, Tropical Cyclone Bualoi—locally known as Typhoon Opong—struck the country’s central region, battering communities with heavy rains and strong winds. Over the following days, the powerful storm crossed over multiple islands in the Philippines. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the storm initially displaced more than 4 million people across 16 regions. Days later, on September 30, a 6.9-magnitude earthquake struck offshore near Cebu City, the country’s fifth-largest urban area. Over 3,000 aftershocks have rattled the region since. Initial reports put the death toll at 68, with extensive damage to homes and commercial infrastructure. Some 370,000 people have been affected and 77,000 are displaced, according to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, with many sleeping in open fields or by the roadside for fear of aftershocks.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 30, 2025

Moving to an island of 300 people, it took effort to become a local. But that hard work paid off

Excerpt from theguardian.com “You’ll lose your friends,” said one of those friends when I moved to Dangar Island. As a migrant, with only two daughters and husband nearby, I was looking for community. Accessed by boat, a little over 300 people live on Dangar Island, on the northern outskirts of Sydney on the Hawkesbury River. I’d visited the island many times – we shared a weekender there with friends. But when the girls left home and my husband retired, we moved to Dangar permanently. We didn’t go blindly. Armed with our boat licences, we understood some of the trials of living on an island. We knew a few people by name and others by sight. I quickly learned that it takes time and effort to become part of a community. It takes even longer to become accepted as a local. I set to work. I volunteered for the Hall Committee, taking on the unenviable role of secretary. I invited people to dinner. I invited them again. To meet people, I regularly went to what was then a community-run cafe for coffee. Over one such coffee, Michael, who is now a dear friend, cajoled me into participating in an art show to raise funds for the cafe.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 24, 2025

If our culture survives, then so do we': The Caribbean island defying the existential threat of hurricanes

Excerpt from bbc.co.uk In the predawn darkness, the streets are still damp from the night before as thousands gather, ready to parade through St George's, the capital of the Caribbean nation of Grenada. Chains scrape against the asphalt and horns jut from helmets pointing skyward. A conch shell sounds, the rallying call that heralds J'Ouvert morning, the official start of carnival, called Spicemas. As dawn breaks, people flood the streets with their bodies blackened with oil and charcoal. This is Jab Jab, one of Grenada's oldest carnival traditions, born of emancipation, resilience and resistance. These masqueraders raise chains as symbols of liberation and dress this way to embody the very figures that oppressors of the past once used to demonise them – using mockery and satire to turn insult into power. Its unruliness is deliberate, a rejection of the order once imposed by colonial rule. That same spirit of defiance is what Grenadians are leaning on today in the face of deep challenges brought by extreme weather. In July 2024, Grenada was left badly damaged when Hurricane Beryl swept over the island and those around it. Fuelled by hot seas, the strongest storms, like Beryl, have arrived earlier and intensified explosively.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 17, 2025

Mandarin learning a gateway for Pacific islands' youths

Caption: Contestants take a group photo in the Confucius Classroom at the Emalus campus of the University of the South Pacific in Port Vila, Vanuatu, Aug. 17, 2018. Photo credit: Xinhua via ChinaDaily.com.cn In the South Pacific island country of Vanuatu, learning Chinese has opened the door for Alice Joseph, 23, to pursue her dream of becoming a medical doctor. Joseph, who has studied Chinese for about a year at the Confucius Classroom on the Emalus Campus of the University of the South Pacific, or USP, will begin her studies in clinical medicine at the Zhengzhou University in Henan province by the end of August. A year ago, Joseph won first place in the Chinese Bridge language competition held in Vanuatu. For the preliminary round, she went to China, which she described as an eyeopening experience and motivated her to apply for the Chinese Government Scholarship to study in China. Joseph said she first started learning Chinese as a hobby, but it turned into an opportunity for her education. Joseph said she wanted to study medicine but had no opportunity in Vanuatu. "I am so fortunate to have the Chinese Government Scholarship to help me fulfill my dreams," she said. Confucius Institutes are nonprofit educational institutions that aim to promote Chinese language and facilitate cultural exchanges.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 3, 2025

Call for applications: OHCHR Indigenous Fellowship Program 2026

Excerpt from ohchr.org The Indigenous Fellowship Programme was launched in 1997 by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the context of the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. The aim of the programme is to give indigenous persons the opportunity to gain knowledge about the UN system and mechanisms dealing with human rights issues in general and indigenous issues in particular. Trained participants are better equipped to assist their organisations and communities in protecting and promoting their rights. This training programme is available in 4 languages: English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 3, 2025

From Sydney to Taipei: the First Nations dancer sharing culture with Indigenous peoples in Taiwan

Image Caption: Torres Strait Islander and Papua New Guinean man Baden Hitchcock is making his mark as a dancer in Taiwan. Excerpt from sbs.com.au When Baden Hitchcock moved to Taipei to study Mandarin, the former Bangarra dancer began working with local Indigenous artists from communities across Taiwan, and found a lot of common ground. When Sydney based dancer Baden Hitchcock packed his bags for Taiwan, he was after a change of pace. The Torres Strait Islander and Papua New Guinean man seized the opportunity to take a scholarship studying Mandarin in Taipei, before turning his attention back to working with other Indigenous artists. "I was with Bangarra [Dance Theatre] for six years ... post Covid, a lot of people had a little bit of a 'Oh I think I need a change in my life,'" he told NITV.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 2, 2025

How the Faroe Islands reversed the brain drain of an ageing population

Excerpt from monocle.com There’s a question that sooner or later confronts those who grow up in a small community: do I stay, or do I go? The overwhelming number of people across Europe that stump for the latter are leaving large swaths of some countries completely hollowed out. Latvia has lost a third of its population in three decades, Bulgaria is on track to lose a fifth of its people by 2050 and some areas in the Scottish Highlands are now emptier than Lapland. It’s a challenge that’s far easier to acknowledge than to address: how do you create an environment that doesn’t just keep people in it but draws back those who have left? The Faroe Islands, a self-governing Danish territory of 18 islands and about 55,000 people in the North Atlantic, could provide an answer.

Culture & CommunitySeptember 2, 2025

Is Ireland becoming a cultural superpower?

Excerpt from artbasel.com They say that if you throw a stone in Ireland, you will hit a writer. But these days, you will just as easily hit a world-renowned visual artist, a subversive rap group, an Oscar-winning actor, or a prominent director. Authors such as Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Edna O’Brien, Anne Enright, and many others have paved the way for the country’s current artistic boom, with creatives of all stripes, from Cillian Murphy to Hozier, flying the flag on the global stage. Its art world, too, is dense with talented individuals. In the remote reaches of Ireland’s northwest, collaborative duo Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty have been making visual art for over a decade. Both are originally from Dublin but moved away from the capital as rents began to rise and studio space became unaffordable. Their work engages strongly with Ireland, but pushes against idealized visions of the country, testing the possibility for creating ‘a new narrative identity for Ireland and the Irish diaspora.’