Tapua Pasuna, 26, crowed Miss Tuvalu 2018, utilises her platform to advocate for women’s rights and education. Through this role, she is the global face of the Tuvaluan nation.
Drawn back to the island, from her studies in New Zealand, due to family obligations what was paramount was Pasuna's empowering sense of responsibility to do what she could for the archipelago. In an article published in the Guardian 2019, Pasuna describes her experience returning home.
"“I left in 2010. When I came back I immediately noticed the difference. The heat is sometimes unbearable now, and the erosion is also dramatic. Some of my favourite spots have disappeared,” says Pasuna, sitting in a stiff-backed wooden chair in her tropical garden, the barely constructed seawall just meters from her home.
“I feel like this is a part of who I am and I shouldn’t just run away from it, even though it’s disappearing. To just abandon it at such a time as this, when it is hurting – I don’t feel comfortable. I don’t feel like I can do that.”
This mentality is shared by a multitude of individuals with Tuvaluan roots based across the globe as well as individuals passionate about their fellow beings. If you share this mentality we need you apart of this fight! Volunteer, take the pledge and get involved.
.jpg)
