Dream in a Bottle: Climate and Health in the Marshall Islands

The climate youth group Jo-Jikum, based in the Marshall Islands, held a Climate Change and Health Arts Seminar.

“The Seminar, run by our nonprofit with partnership from Ministry of Health, recognizes the power of the arts in communicating and understanding the complex issue of climate change. With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting and closing the borders in the Marshall Islands, these discussions became all the more relevant, in understanding how the destruction of natural habitats is interwoven with climate impacts and manifests in community health impacts such as COVID-19 as well as other illnesses such as dengue.” Read more here

Check out some of the art work created by incredible Marshallese youth!

“Cheers” by Hazel Peter

This painting represents our rising sea levels. As the sea level increase, I wanted the coconuts to represent our current livelihood and future. The coconut in the left (bad coconut) represents our future. It represents oil in our ocean with no animals. The coconut in the right (good coconut) represents our current lively hood with our fresh water and a beautiful land. I painted two hands to have a cheers with one another, so we all can help each other to save our beautiful islands.

“Man-Made Disasters” by Marck Conception

The message of this painting is that climate change is real and that it can be caused by man-made factories and ships. I would like the audience to see that air pollution can be caused by smoke coming from factories. The painting also shows that our ocean can be polluted by massive amounts of oil spills from ships. This pollution can cause our marine animals to lose their lives.

“Dream in a Bottle” by Minnie Yao

The reality of our world is chaotic, being it deforestation or rising sea levels. But we all dream of the perfect world, right? In my bottle, there are plants flourishing whilst outside the bottle of dream, chaos is in the process of happening. The bottle will always be a dream, never to become true if we don’t take action.

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