Reweaving an Ecological Pacific

The Institute for Mission and Research (IMR) of the Pacific Theological College is organising a series of webinars and online meetings on the theme ‘Changing the Story (CTS) of Development in the Pacific Meeting Series.’

The meeting series scheduled weekly, one week for young Pacific Islanders conversations and the other for the more senior generation, is held around various themes focussed on the dimensions of the introduced neo-liberal development model in the Pacific Islands.

Virtual meetings are being held on the Zoom platform, abiding by the COVID19 social distancing restrictions.

The theme for each meeting is set by IMR. 

The first meeting provided an Overview of Development in the Pacific islands and Pacific Spirituality and Philosophy and its Implications for Development in the Pacific Islands. 

The second focused on Globalisation and Neoliberalism. 

The third will address the issue of Education. 

The webinar and podcasts that make up the CTS meeting series is part of the Reweaving the Ecological Mat Project working towards building the greater movement of reweaving an ecological Pacific. 

The neoliberal narrative of development though has brought about a lot of progress in terms of education, the economies, health, technology and others have also given rise to a lot of despair. 

Pacific Islanders for instance make up some of the highest number of people living with non-communicable diseases and deaths around the world. 

Environment degradation and the loss of ecological relationships is at its worst.

Poverty, inequality and a deepening sense of insecurity pervades the region. 

The COVID19 pandemic has brought to stark reality the failures of the neoliberal model of development.

Economic development has suffered. People have trained for job markets that no longer exist. 

The online meetings create a space for conversations on rethinking development by examining the frailties of the past and reimagining a future model that places wellbeing of people at its centre. 

The meetings are open to the public.

The speakers are chosen from a pool of contributing authors to a book titled ‘From the Deep: Pasifiki Voices for a New Story,’ which hosts a collection of dreams and visions of a new normal the authors submitted as part of a Call for Visions on reimagining a new normal.

The Call for Visions is a strategy of the REM project, crafted post-COVID19.

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