Program Communications Associate

Iemaima Vaai recently moved home to Samoa and works for Conservation International Samoa as the Program Communications Associate for the Samoa Ocean Strategy (SOS). In this role, she supports the SOS secretariat in effectively communicating the SOS's goals, progress, and value through various platforms and events, ensuring consistent messaging and wide public engagement.

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She is of Samoan descent, has an academic background in climate change and environmental management, and specializes in loss and damage. She has experience in climate-induced displacement and relocation in the Pacific and its relation to loss of culture, identity, and indigenous knowledge.

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She is an ecological stewardship and climate justice activist at heart. She has formerly worked and volunteered in and out of the NGO—non-profit space in Fiji, working on climate justice, conservation, decolonization, the revival of Indigenous knowledge, community engagement and resilience, and youth empowerment.

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She has a passion for Pacific Indigenous philosophy and knowledge.  Her recent publications intersect with "Rethinking\Reweaving Sustainable Development Frameworks" and "Loss and Damage: Implications of Migration on the Young Pacific Diaspora Community." Her aspiration as a young activist is to seek climate solutions and amplify Pacific community resilience by reviving traditional knowledge and indigenous eco-relational philosophies as an avenue for sustainable development.