Nineteen- year old Grace Fong is the climate science Oceania national coordinator for Fiji.
Growing up hearing about rising sea levels and even more intense tropical cyclones, she began to understand the threat of climate change.
As a student of Yat Sen Secondary School and later a scholarship student of International Secondary School Suva, Grace’s passion to play an active role against climate change grew.
“While climate education in Fiji has been incorporated into several topics, I still feel like there’s still so much more to learn because even though I am being educated on what the problem is, there isn’t enough coverage of the practical ways to solve it,” she said
While she understands the state of climate education in Fiji, she also realises the potential young people have to step out and make a difference.
Grace has engaged in volunteer work in community and school projects, competed in writing essays and even participated in the Kaila! Design Your Own Newspaper competition in 2018 where she researched climate activism.
She sought out climate action pages on instagram and stumbled across a page called ClimateScience (@climate_science). It caught her attention because it posted engaging and interesting content with graphics that spread useful information on the science behind climate change. So, when the organisation posted that it was looking for volunteers, Grace seized the opportunity and became a member.
“ClimateScience is a UK-based educational NGO that aims to make the science behind climate change and its solutions easily accessible, scientifically reliable, and fun to learn,” she said.
Grace said ClimateScience was made up of national branches with local communities that operate independently, spreading climate education through organising events and collaborating with organisations and schools. Aside from ClimateScienceFiji, there are several communities in other countries such as Tuvalu, Solomon Islands and Samoa which are all in the beginning processes of establishment.
After successfully going through a period of completing tasks and interviews, Grace officially joined ClimateScience in February 2020 and set-up a ClimateScience national branch here in Fiji becoming its national coordinator. She then began to invite interested youths through social media and by word-of-mouth. ClimateScience Fiji now has more than 30 members whose ages range from 16 to 27 years old, but with no specific age limit.
ClimateScience Fiji is actively involved in setting up local events that spread climate education and empower youths to engage in learning solutions to climate change. It has hosted four successful debates since August 2020, with the last being judged by experts from the Ministry of Economy’s Climate Change Division and with Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum attending as a surprise guest.
ClimateScience has also organised global ClimateScience events on a local level such as the ClimateScience Olympiad which was virtually conducted last year. It was a student competition to find solutions to climate change and allow participants to compete for the opportunity to present at the UN Climate Summit.
Graces said ClimateScience Fiji’s goals for 2022 have been to set-up ClimateScience clubs and teacher programs within schools which would allow for free resources and access to course content, activity worksheets, training and events for both students and teachers that would easily bring climate education into the classroom. So, for those who may be interested they can reach out and email grace@climatescience.org
“ClimateScience’s content is focussed on solutions which, despite being scientifically reliable, is presented in a bite-sized way with interesting graphics that make it fun and easier to learn.
“We hope to work with the Ministry of Education to integrate more of ClimateScience’s educational material into classrooms in Fiji.
“ClimateScience has worked successfully with other schools globally to do this, and has partnerships with universities including Cambridge Zero (University of Cambridge) and Nature-Based Solutions Initiative (University of Oxford).”
While Grace shares the importances of reaching out to improve climate education within Fiji, she encourages youths to do their part and step out to play a more active role within the community.
“Youths are powerful agents of change and we can’t keep waiting for the future to start leading and making positive changes.
“If I hadn’t put myself out there in new and unfamiliar positions, I would never have been able to gain this opportunity. Just make that step forward as every small action has the potential to reach a tipping point of revolution.”
