Impacts of Climate Change on Health in the Pacific

This short intro video is the first in a series I've been making for the World Health Organisation over the past year and a half, covering the impacts of climate change on health in the Pacific.

I started work on these vids back in July 2019, when I visited the Solomon Islands, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Fiji and finally Tuvalu.

In each country I was looking for people dealing directly with the health problems made worse by climate change.

And with the help of WHO and local staff I was lucky enough to find some truly exceptional people.

They include; Fiorenzo, a volunteer dietician working in the hospital in Honiara. Bobson, in charge of mosquito control in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands. Teretia, an environmental health officer monitoring water quality in South Tarawa, Kiribati. Celine, teaching young people how to find and grow traditional foods in the Cook Islands. And Loto, a nursing assistant in Tuvalu, helping patients and his own family cope with dengue and diabetes.

The videos were almost ready for release at the start of 2020, but then COVID hit and kinda changed things. With the WHO working on that these videos took a back-seat until now, when it's clear the ongoing threat of climate change has not relented during the COVID-19 crisis.

Stay tuned for more Pacific vids to come out soon.

Thanks and lots of love, Kim

Young Indigenous leaders in Western Sydney

These vids were made for the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (NASCA) in July 2020, to highlight the great work a group of young indigenous leaders have been doing in Western Sydney over the past year. Each young person profiled won a different award from NASCA, that would usually be presented at a gala during NAIDOC week, but because of COVID the gala was unfortunately cancelled/postponed. So, they got these vids instead!!

It was a real pleasure to be able to travel across Western Sydney to meet and film these amazing young people, and find out about their challenges and successes.

I wish them all the best in the future, and look forward to seeing all the great things they get up to over the next few years.

Sabyah fights for the future

In November and December 2019, and then July 2020, I filmed and recorded Sabyah as part of a documentary project directed by Irja von Bernstorff, for german TV series and a feature film.

The series is about young people in different parts of the world fighting to protect their local environments, and when I met Sabyah she was living in northern Queensland, not far from Adani's Carmichael Mine site and coal export terminal.

I met Sabyah at Camp Binbee, a remote camp of anti-coal activists engaging in non-violent direct action to slow down and hopefully stop the construction of the Carmichael Mine and the railroad Adani is attempting to build to transport the Galilee Basin coal.

Sabyah was the only young person in her town involved in the fight for a safe future, and was being socially ostracised by many of the other young people. We filmed her efforts to engage her classmates in her activism, and all the challenges that presented. It was tough for her, the area she lived in was super conservative, and she was seen as a radical outsider, with very few people apart from the Camp Binbee activists and her mum to tell her she was doing the right thing. Many people, let alone kids, would have given up long before we got there.

This photo is taken near Nimbin in July 2020, where Sabyah had moved in early 2020. She's an amazing young person and I was so excited and privileged to be part of this project. The series and film comes out soon.