2024 Pacific Indigenous Women’s Conference

11AM

• Registration Opens
• Networking and Hawaiian Music by Kainani Kahaunaele and friends

11:30AM

• Lunch is served for all registered participants

12:45PM

• Wehena- Opening Ceremony and Remarks (Hawaiʻi)

1:15PM

• Special Guest Remarks
  • Jaime Kanani Green, the First Lady of Hawai’i (to be confirmed)
  • Makau Ariki Atawhai, Kiingitanga, Aotearoa (to be confirmed)

1:45PM

• Keynote Presentation by Mililani Trask (Hawaiʻi)

2:30PM

• Lei of Wisdom Dialogue Session with Hema Wihongi (Aotearoa), Saina Faye Untalan (Guahan), Grace Serious (Chuuk, FSM), Ekela Kaniaupio-Crozier (Hawaiʻi), and moderated by Julia Faye Munoz (Guahan).
  • “The Role of Pacific Indigenous Women in Caring for our Communities and Preparing the Next Generation”
    
    We are excited to have our elders and leaders share their cultural backgrounds, experiences, knowledge, and wisdom about the critical role indigenous women have as life-givers and caregivers, empowered and living in self-determined ways, and ensuring their knowledge, traditions, and healing power are shared across generations of indigenous women and girls to assist them in addressing today’s complex challenges.

4:15PM

• Closing Remarks and Announcements

8AM

• Registration Opens

8:45AM

• Welcoming Remarks
• Spiritual Blessing- Eileen Meno (Guahan)

9AM

• “Indigenous Women Leading Environmental Justice and Empowering Sustainability” (panel presentation)
  
  Climate change and environmental degradation directly and indirectly impact the realization of human rights of people, especially those who have least caused it resulting in climate and environmental injustice.
  
  This panel will discuss approaches to sustainable development which considers dimensions of inequalities in programming and that can be truly transformative if implemented.

11AM

• “Mauliola: Taking Care of Self, Girls, and Family” (panel presentation)
  
  In the Pacific region, indigenous women and girls often experience multiple forms of discrimination and are disproportionately vulnerable to violence.
  
  This panel will discuss critical areas of concern impacting the human rights of indigenous women and girls, including gender-based violence, health, and education, and recommendations for effective and sustainable advocacy and public actions by indigenous women, reflecting their voices and priorities.

12:30PM

• Lunch is served

1PM

• “Indigenous Pacific Women Leaders: Looking at Ourselves through the Eyes of the Future” (Lunch Keynote Presentation) by Saina Laura Souder (Guahan)
  
  Weaving a Transpacific Indigenous Women’s Network requires that we have a collective vision of who we are, a clarity of purpose about what we want and a consensus about how we proceed to achieve the outcomes we desire. There are templates for success in the wisdom of our legends and traditional ways as can be found in the popular CHamoru story of the Maidens Who Saved Guåhan.
  
  Dr. Laura M. Torres Souder, an indigenous CHamoru from Guåhan in the Marianas has explored and documented the historical networking strategies that CHamoru women organizers have utilized to meet their community goals. Her presentation will feature some of their insights and her own work in ensuring the continuity and revitalization of the CHamoru language and culture of the First People of her beloved island homeland. She will explore challenges and obstacles through such thought-provoking questions as: When we look at ourselves through the eyes of the future, what do we see? Imagine our ancestors looking at themselves through our eyes – what would they see?

2PM

• Collective Visioning for the Pacific Indigenous Women Network
  Facilitated by: Lisa Natividad (Guahan) and Julia Faye Munoz (Guahan)

4PM

• Reporting Back

4:45PM

• Music and Cultural Dance Performance: MiCulture Club (FSM)
• Closing Remarks and Announcements