Ms Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

Ms Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a Marshall Islander poet, performance artist and educator. She received international acclaim through her poetry performance at the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in 2014. Her writing and performances have been featured by CNN Democracy Now, the Huffington Post, NBC News, National Geographic, and more. In February 2017, the University of Arizona Press published her first collection of poetry, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter. She also co-founded the youth environmentalist non- profit Jo-Jikum dedicated to empowering Marshallese youth to seek solutions to climate change and other environmental impacts threatening their home island. Ms Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner has been selected as one of 13 Climate Warriors by Vogue in 2015 and the Impact Hero of the Year by Earth Company in 2016.  She received her Master’ s in Pacific Island Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She also attended the first national climate change and health dialogue recently held in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Ms Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner will represent the youth and the younger generations in the CCE TAG - seeking solutions to climate change and other environmental impacts threatening health.