Transcript
MOEO FINAUGA: The scholarship is part of our output for our project. A stated output of our project is that we are targetting long term capacity building for the government of Tuvalu. So there are two components in that output. One that we are targetting the young generation and the second one that we are targetting capacity building for the government personnel. For this first year we sending two, we have selected two awardees, selected based on their relevance to the goals and the objectives of the project.
JENNY MEYER: Who has been chosen and what will they study?
MF: At the moment we only selected the civil engineering with some coastal background for one of the students to take and the other scholarship award is the Bachelor of Science in geospatial science.
JM: And where will the students go to study?
MF: We have, in the scholarship, we have two countries, to send these students, one is Australia and the other one is New Zealand. So far at the moment we only received an offer of enrollment for the student studying civil engineering, he's the boy, so he will be studying at Canterbury University.
JM: So you're still looking for a place, a university to accept the girl who's wanting to study geospatial planning is it?
MF: In Australia, yes.
JM: What are you hoping will come out of a program like this in terms of improving Tuvalu's resilience to coastal erosion and climate change?
MF: I am hoping that they will complete their studies on time because for the scholarship, it's a great opportunity for them to learn the theoretical aspects of the job but even though they have to study they still need to build up their hands on training. The project has already specified timelines for them to complete their studies. And we will be offering jobs to them to work for the project while the international, maybe the international team who are going to do some coastal measures for the nation, during the lifetime of the project, so they will be part of the whole team working with those experts.
JM: What's happening there in Tuvalu in terms of coastal erosion? Are you coping or is there still significant inundation at times.
MF: Yes, I think inundation is happening every year now and the same with the king tides and the storm surges. We are still struggling with it. The problems are there. But it's the way we react to those problems. It takes a bit of time for the communities to handle the pressure from those climate change effects. Tuvalu is doing all it can to make sure that not only the community themselves but the coastline, they are doing every effort that they can to make their coastlines more resilient to climate change and all those side events.
