Advocating for Indigenous Pacific Islanders: My Experience in the Product Immersion Program at CUNY - Talei Caucau

For the past few months, I participated in the Product Immersion program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at The City University of New York (CUNY). After finding an advertisement about the program online, I applied and was delighted to find out that my application was accepted. I joined 24 other writers and journalists from small newsrooms and nonprofits in faraway places like Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Pakistan, South Korea, and Vietnam in attending virtual classes with experts in the field of journalism every week.

The program encouraged participants, from all backgrounds, to write stories they are passionate about. Writing and public speaking are areas of capacity that need to be built in the South Pacific region, where many qualified and capable Pacific Islanders are held back due to their inability to advocate for themselves. Shyness is a characteristic that affects many of us, and we are led to believe that humility means sitting down and being silent, which hinders our potential to be leaders in our own land. On the contrary, our humility should propel us forward and help us excel in leadership positions.

As Pacific Islanders, we should learn to speak up for ourselves and advocate for each other. This program at CUNY is an opportunity for Indigenous Pacific journalists and writers to learn to tell their own stories and those of their villages and communities. So often, Pacific culture is written about by foreigners who do not understand the language and context of our culture. Only those of us who are connected to a village can understand the intricacies of our cultures.

The world requires and deserves more Indigenous Pacific researchers, academics, and writers to share our customs, language, and culture from our own perspectives. This program at CUNY will help develop products such as online magazines, blogs, and newsletters for Indigenous Pacific journalists and writers to speak for themselves and record their culture.

A speaker in the CUNY program spoke about how writers should aim to let people speak for themselves. By speaking for others, we risk speaking over them. This made me reflect on how I advocate for Kanaks, the Indigenous people of New Caledonia. In the future, I hope to use my role at Melanesian Women Today to give Kanaks an opportunity to speak for themselves and write about their culture. I am going to interview Kanaks to find their views on their native culture and the French colonization that has lasted for so long.

Every few months, CUNY selects a cohort of writers and journalists from all over the world to participate in this program. To apply, you must be a member of a small newsroom or nonprofit that publishes articles or newsletters and provide proof of published articles in your application. You must also commit to four hours of weekly online classes for approximately three months. The program is conducted in collaboration with Google News Initiative, and participants are required to attend the majority of online classes and interact with classmates. Here's the application link: https://www.journalism.cuny.edu/j-plus/product-immersion-for-small-newsrooms/.

CUNY does not offer certificates of completion for this program, but you can still add information about it to your LinkedIn profile or resume, as CUNY will add your personal background and attendance for this course to their website. You can google "Talei Caucau CUNY" to find an article on CUNY's website about my participation in the program.

This program is an excellent and free opportunity for Pacific Islanders to develop their writing and journalistic skills. I am grateful to CUNY and the Google News Initiative for giving me a chance to learn to articulate myself better and advocate for Indigenous Pacific Islanders by designing effective journalism products.

Author : Talei Caucau is an indigenous Fijian from the village of Mua on Batiki Island, situated in the Lomaiviti Province of Fiji. She is a content writer and operates an Etsy shop known as Batiki Island Girl, named after her place of origin. Additionally, she serves as the MWT Fiji Country Coordinator.