Matagi Mālohi : Strong Winds

Matagi Mālohi tells the story of our journey to uplift our people and shape a narrative that paints us not as victims of the climate crisis but as the leaders, the healers, the nurturers, the artists, the gardeners, the growers, the seafarers and the navigators we are.

We need to be the strong winds that have carried our ancestors across the seas. We need to be the strong winds pushing our leaders forward as they come up against the might of these big bullying nations. We need to be the strong winds, that Matagi Mālohi, that bring the change our people need to see.

– Pacific Climate Warriors

Watch

“Brown bodies moulding brown minds. Moving between healer and warrior, you are future ancestors carving visions of liberation we can’t even imagine.”

“You are matagi mālohi. ”

Read the poem

Subtitles available in Français, Português, Español. Click on CC button

Pacific Islanders: Take Action

This September 20-27, Pacific Climate Warriors from across the region will mobilize online and offline to show the world that a Just Recovery is about planting the seeds today that we know our future can harvest tomorrow.

Message 350 Pacific on Facebook to join an action near you!

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[For non-Pacific Islanders: you can find more ways to show your solidarity. click here]

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Photo: Forest Woodward

About the Team

About the Pacific Climate Warriors

350 Pacific is a youth-led grassroots network working with communities to fight climate change from the Pacific Islands. 350 Pacific works with organizers across 17 Pacific Island nations and diaspora communities in Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America to highlight the vulnerabilities of our island countries to climate change while showcasing our strength and resilience as a people. We work through existing networks and with a range of partner organisations who share in our vision for the Pacific and the planet. 350 Pacific has organised and facilitated workshops to educate and empower youth in the region, and through our many campaigns have had the opportunity to amplify the voices of frontline communities of this climate crisis.


About the Filmmakers

Strong Winds is a collaboration between US based filmmakers/brothers Forest Woodward and Canyon Woodward and director/editor Aidan Haley. Together we have spent the last decade working on issues relating to climate and social justice, and are deeply grateful for the chance to share this latest collaboration, an homage to the front line communities of the Pacific Islands and beyond. The seeds of this film were planted 4 years ago on a trip to Fiji and Tuvalu at the invitation of the Pacific Climate Warriors.

We are deeply grateful to the Climate Warriors and the families of Tuvalu, to Fenton Lutunatabua for his guidance throughout the project and for the poem which served as original inspiration for the film, as well as to Kevin Aipopo for their leadership and spoken word, and to all of the youth around the world who are organizing, marching, and standing up for a better future for our planet and each other.

 


Kevin Lionga Aipopo

Kevin Lionga Aipopo is a community advocate, storyteller, and student leader based in Traditional Kalupuya lands (Tigard, Oregon). Their work centers around the intersections between their ethnic identity as a Black American and Samoan person and their gender fluidity. Through interpersonal connection, community organizing, poetry, and education, they have found space as an emerging voice for Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, and Climate liberation.

 

Matagi Mālohi

By Fenton Lutunatabua

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds. A symbol of our movement blurring identities, validating purpose and strengthening stewardship over this vanua we are called to protect.

You are stained bark cloth for skin, saltwater chants dancing with the moon and reimagined dreams pacing with the tides.

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds from sacred places and revered spaces.

A spiral kaleidoscope of broken coral and memory called to collect, curate and reconcile.

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds rising up and villaging children.

Brown bodies moulding brown minds. Moving between healer and warrior, you are future ancestors carving visions of liberation we can’t even imagine.

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds seeking frontline truths in this transcendent talanoa of knowledges.

Masculine culture, feminine consciousness, woven together, lose’d together- wai….donu….

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds from the four pillars of our fale.

The same ancestors that are calling you to belief will also call you to unbelief, so your faith can take a new form. So you can return to the source and be reminded of the commonality of our plurality.

You are matagi mālohi. Strong winds listening, nourishing, transforming.

We are stewards of gifts from our old people. Noqu wasawasa, era sa vura, era sa vura, era sa vura (my ocean, they have emerged)

Learn More

Take Action: Show Global Solidarity

Here are campaigns that people around the world can get involved in to support climate justice.

GLOBAL: Demand a Just Recovery: Join the call for a united global response to this COVID-19 pandemic that ensures a just recovery and transition to a better future for those most in need in the wake of this crisis.

 

Global: On September 25, join the youth-led global day of climate action. Join in whatever way is safe for you and your community.

 

U.S.: The financial sector is funding, insuring and investing in the climate crisis. Stopping this money pipeline is one of the most important ways we can address the climate emergency. Learn how you can Stop the Money Pipeline

 

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