Learning how to make things happen: PPP's Aboriginal media project sheds light on indigenous struggles across Pacific.

The heady scent of the Frangipani flower lingers in the air as we speed down the Queen's Highway in our rental van. Laughter resounds from the backseat where Stanley Simpson, coordinator of the Fiji based Pacific Network on Globalisation, has just finished telling one of his warmly welcomed stories. Squished between bags, boxes and film equipment sits Tania Willard, a young woman from the Secwepemc Nation in the interior of British Columbia and editor of Redwire Native Youth Magazine. She wears her headphones, busily transcribing the interviews and sounds she caught on tape earlier in the day. Paul Barnsley, senior reporter for Windspeaker, Canada's largest national Aboriginal-owned monthly newspaper, and Nelson Bird from CTV Saskatchewan, the host of "Indigenous Circle" and a Cree from the Peepeekisis Nation, chuckle at Stanley's stories while absorbing the sights and sounds along Fiji's main highway.

We are en route to Rakiraki--a village on the north coast of Viti Levu. Awaiting our arrival is Titila Nakarawa, a landowner fighting for the return of her hereditary land on which a handful of foreign-owned resorts currently sit. Titila is also a creative businesswoman; her latest initiative entails employing the village youth to hunt colourful fish that line the reefs. Her business name is "Make It Happen". These three words are painted along the side of her yellow boat. "I believe good things happen to people if we make them happen," she explains simply. Appropriate words from a woman who is a community force advocating for the return of her land.

Like Titila Nakarawa, many individuals, grassroots associations and organisations we met during an intense two-week tour to Fiji and Vanuatu are putting their energy towards trying to make positive things happen in their lives and their communities. Throughout the exposure tour, which constituted the first phase of Pacific Peoples' Partnership's "Speaking Out! Aboriginal Media Talk Development" initiative, the three journalists and I encountered an array of people and communities, all taking positive steps to address challenges within their lives and nations.

In some cases, challenges present themselves in the form of large transnational corporations, as is the case in Vatakoula, Fiji. For more than 12 years, 370 gold miners have been striking against the unjust policies and terrible working conditions of the Australian-owned Emperor Gold Mine. In other cases, challenges come by way of actions taken by the government or international institutions, such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. This is the case on Vanuatu's remote Ambrym Island, where a community group is actively addressing these external pressures to 'develop' and reform a centuries-old land tenure system, a step that they recognize will lead to the community's eventual collapse. In the process of doing "critical literacy" work--what is defined as the process of reading and writing one's own life--the Lolihor Youth Awareness Team is helping to empower rural communities to address this assault on community life. In Port Vila we met with a youth theatre group which spends its days rehearsing and performing, addressing issues often considered controversial, such as domestic violence, alcohol abuse and teen pregnancy.

The individuals and groups we met are diverse and numerous. Although they can't all be named here, each one contributed to opening the journalists' eyes to the ways that communities in Fiji and Vanuatu live, the challenges they face, and the initiatives they are taking to address those challenges.

Having returned to Canada, the journalists are each producing several pieces for publication, to encourage Canadians to examine the commonalities of experiences among Indigenous peoples in Canada and the South Pacific, and to gain a deeper understanding of how communities are addressing creatively the challenges they face.

What resonated most clearly with me is the positive attitudes and resilience shown by the individuals we met. Despite the Herculean social, economic and political challenges that impinge upon their lives, they continue to bring forth positive change within their communities. As Joseva (Joe) Sadreu, president of the Fiji Mine Workers' Union and one of the striking gold miners who left his station 12 years ago on the chance that he could improve the lot of all gold miners, says, "Our struggle is not only for us and our families, but for all workers who face injustice in their lives". Joe's words should inspire us all to take a chance and make some good things happen in our lives and in the lives of others.

Jennifer Talbot, Programme Development Officer with Pacific Peoples" Partnership and coordinator of the "Speaking Out! Aboriginal Media Talk Development" initiative.