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The walk to school at Sunrise Primary School.
Photo: Mwarikina Kaikai, teacher in Kiribati
A teacher in Kiribati contends with climate change and calls on unions everywhere to act, writes Lucy Meyer.
“Our country is losing its people,” says Tinia James, a teacher in the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati. The 32-year-old mother of three is witnessing an exodus from her home country.
The low-lying nation, located halfway between Australia and Hawaii, is on the front lines of climate change.
According to a report from the World Bank, Kiribati is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the climate crisis.
Scientists have long predicted that many – if not all – of Kiribati’s citizens will become climate refugees. It remains to be seen which generation will be the last to live out their lives on their island home.
James’s students are only in their first year of high school, but climate change is already part of their daily existence, regularly keeping many of them from the classroom.
The young teacher has a class of 40 at Animwarao Junior Secondary School on Kiribati’s main atoll, Tarawa. But when it rains heavily – which it does often these days, even in the dry season – only a dozen students make it to school. In the weeks before IE went to press, “it’s been happening constantly”.