Working with our local partners in Niue to empower the diaspora to reconnect with Niue and create a more climate resilient future.
Photo by Sariah Magaoa
At first glance, the idea of developing a culture and language-focused bridging course for Niue’s diaspora might seem like a heritage project – a noble and important effort to preserve identity. However, at its core, this initiative is about something much bigger: climate adaptation/ resilience and strengthening Niue’s civil society.
Niue, a small island nation in the South Pacific, faces a critical challenge: depopulation. With 90-95% of tagata Niue (people of Niue) living in New Zealand, the island’s population has dwindled to around 1,700, making it increasingly difficult to sustain essential community and climate resilience efforts. While many in the diaspora express a desire to return, they face significant barriers, including navigating land tenure, reconnecting with culture and language, and securing employment. Without structured support, the prospect of returning can feel daunting, leaving Niue without the people power it desperately needs to thrive.
A Collaborative Effort for Change
This is where ICAAD and the Niue Women for Climate Justice Alliance have teamed up. By leveraging ICAAD’s expertise in transformative education and the Alliance’s leadership in the local climate justice movement, we are co-designing an innovative bridging course to support tagata Niue seeking to reconnect with and contribute to their homeland.
The idea didn’t emerge in isolation. It builds upon years of collaborative work. Jama’l Talagi Veidreyaki, a Niue researcher and national consultant with Niue Eco-Logic Consultancy, and ICAAD’s Erin Thomas have been working on multiple projects in Niue, addressing climate change, mental health, and gender-based violence. In 2022, with the support of UN Women, they led an artivism and community-building initiative with Makefu village women, which eventually engaged communities along the island’s west coast. In many conversations about current challenges, including local conferences such as the Niue National Summit organised by the Government of Niue and other local climate change meetings on Traditional Knowledge, Climate Resilience, Climate Mobility and others, one challenge repeatedly surfaced: the island simply doesn’t have enough people to implement necessary climate adaptation and resilience strategies.
Erin Thomas and Jama’l Talagi Veidreyaki at a Curriculum Co-Design Workshop. Photo by Sariah Magaoa
Taking Action
To tackle this issue, ICAAD and the Niue Women for Climate Justice Alliance have been curating a program to bridge the knowledge gaps and equip tagata Niue intending to return to Niue with the necessary skills to understand their identity, confront their assumptions, interrogate their expectations, reconnect with the land of their ancestors, and prepare to participate in life on Niue.
The first two modules—funded by the U.S. Embassy in New Zealand—will be piloted this year. Recently, the project team, including Jama’l, Erin, and our Multimedia specialist, Sariah Magaoa, gathered in Niue to consult key stakeholders, co-design the curriculum with key knowledge holders, and record interviews and multimedia content for the course.
This initiative has been deeply participatory from the start. In July 2024, we hosted a workshop in Auckland to shape the course framework. In that session, we emphasised that the course is a community-building experience in its own right. Workshop participants—some of whom will likely enroll—shared that they wanted the course to feel nourishing, like a gathering around a shared meal, where knowledge and connection sustain them.
Equipping People to Thrive in Community
Since then, the team has been working closely with local knowledge holders, refining curriculum elements, and incorporating insights from ICAAD’s transformative learning methodologies. The goal is not just to teach history, culture, and language but to equip participants with the relational skills necessary to integrate into Niue’s deeply interconnected communities.
“It’s a really interesting and exciting project because, at its core, it’s about how we help equip people to shift—back or for the first time—into a deeply relational community,” Erin shared. “On the island, you’re not an island. The course will be as much about sharing information as it will be about building the skills needed to thrive in the community.”
For Sariah, who joined ICAAD as a multimedia specialist with experience at Broadcasting Corporation Niue and Pacific Media Network, the project is both professionally and personally meaningful. “I get to do the thing I love in the place I love,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve worked on a community-focused project like this, and it’s an opportunity to apply my media skills to something that feels impactful.”
Jama’l underscored the broader significance: “This project builds directly on past work in Niue by tagata Niue. The challenges we’re addressing have been widely consulted, and the gap is well-known. One of the most pressing issues in Niue is climate change, and all adaptation and resilience efforts require human resources. We need our people. And our people overseas are longing to come back and reconnect to the lands of our ancestors. The bridge is there—this course is about helping people cross it.”
Through this project, we are not only strengthening Niue’s capacity for resilience but also demonstrating the power of transformative educational programs to build bridges across cultural difference. When we unlock our ability to connect with one another, we unlock people’s power. This work is just the beginning, and the impact of this course has the potential to shape diaspora communities around the world.
Former Director of Taoga Niue, Moira Enetama; Sariah Magaoa; Erin Thomas
