Water Protectors Rising Panel Series – Panel #2: Watering the Buds of Solidarity
📸: Brittany Greeson + Sierra Club HI + Marie Hobro + Matt Hardy/Pexels
Red Hill is definitely not pau yet! At the start of July, we learned that the Navy plans to take two and a half years to complete its defueling process. The Department of Defense is asking us to put our lives on the line and live in daily fear of an existential threat for another 900 days. Meanwhile, affected families are still reporting fuel sheens in their water and experiencing health impacts. This is unacceptable.
We learned from the water protectors in our first panel, Lessons from the Fight for Water Justice: From Camp Lejeune to Red Hill, that Red Hill is not occurring in a silo. Many communities around the world have and continue to struggle with having their water contaminated by failed government agencies. By bringing communities together to support each other in our respective efforts we can elevate our voices and amplify our power to protect all of our waters, and our lives, from further harm. That is why we are again partnering with the Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action to bring you our second Water Protectors Rising panel!
Panel #2
Watering the Buds of Solidarity
WATCH THE PANEL:
📆 Thursday, July 14, 2022 via Zoom
12:30 PM–2:00 PM HST
3:30 PM-5:00 PM PT
5:30 PM-7:00 PM CT
6:30 PM-8:00 PM ET & AST
1:30 PM-3:00 PM AKDT
8:30 AM-9:30 AM ChST (JULY 15TH FOR GUÅHAN)
🗣 Throughout history, many island communities have stood on the frontlines of environmental pollution and water contamination. Join us as we bring together organizers from Hawaiʻi, Puerto Rico, and Guåhan to discuss these toxic legacies, their current work and strategies to protect water, and ways we can build solidarity across islands. Together, we will rise up against these systems that treat our water and our lives as expendable.
👥 Meet the Panelists
Maria Hernandez (Guåhan)
Maria Hernandez is a daughter of Guåhan; CHamoru, Filipina and Mexican mother of three; and environmental and cultural rights activist with a B.A. in Literature and M.S. in Business. She is a core member of indigenous CHamoru women-led non-profit Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian (PLSR), which aligns with organizations throughout the Mariåna Islands in protection of sacred native lands and advocates for the rightful return of ancestral lands. She is also a member of I Hagan Famalåo'an Guahan, a CHamoru women's association of Guåhan which promotes the cultural, health, economic, political, spiritual and social welfare of Chamoru women and girls, and all CHamoru people in Guam. She is currently a 2022 Bertha Foundation Fellow producing a short film series to address the relationship between politics and profit contributing to the degradation of Guåhan’s main freshwater aquifer and contamination of coastal and ground waters across the Mariånas archipelago, and exploring solutions to help protect these invaluable resources.
Myrna Pagán (Vieques)
Myrna (Taíno name: Inaru Kuni- Woman of the Sacred Waters) lives on the shores of the Caribbean Sea on the tiny island of Vieques. This paradise served as a training ground for the US Navy and for more than six decades suffered from the devastation of the health of its residents and the environment. This assault converted Myrna and many of others of Vieques to become peace-loving warriors in opposition to the US Navy’s desecration of their island.
She is the Founder of Vidas Viequenses Valen an environmental movement working for peace and justice, and a Founding member of Radio Vieques, Educational Community Radio. She is a steering committee member of the Ceasefire Campaign and a Community representative for the Restoration Advisory Board of the US Navy and for the EPA, U. Mass project to study the effects of military toxins on Viequenses and their environment
Myrna was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1935, raised in New York City, and has lived in Vieques for half a century. She has a Master of Fine Arts from Catholic University, Washington, DC, 1959. She is the widow of Charles R. Connelly. Mother of five, Grandmother of nine, soon to be great grandmother! Artist, Activist, Abuela
She has traveled to represent the people of Vieques and advocate for their rights to Peace conferences in Okinawa, Germany, and India, and at Universities in the US including U. Connecticut, U. Michigan, and UC Davis. She has spoken five times at The United Nations Decolonization Committee. She has appeared in many documentaries and has testified before US Congress to present the Vieques story and advocate for the rights of her people.
Dr. Kalehua Krug (Hawaiʻi)
Kalehua Krug is proudly from the Waiʻanae Coast on the island of Oʻahu. His ʻohana lived in Nānākuli for generations. He currently resides in Lualualei with his 3 keiki. He has worked as a Kaiapuni Immersion teacher, a Hawaiian Language Teacher Educator at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and transitioned to become the administrator of the Hawaiian Language Immersion Program of the Department of Education in 2014. In 2019, Kalehua became the Principal of Ka Waihona o ka Naʻauao Public Charter School. He studies indigenous philosophy and worldview and utilizes Hawaiian cultural traditions as a mechanism to build a more sustainable future for our children and our environment. As a member of Kaʻohewai, a consortium of water protecting native Hawaiian institutions, he is a proponent of implementing traditional Hawaiian ideologies when making ecological decisions for Hawaiʻi.