The Pacific Girl Inception Workshop was held from 21–25 October 2019 in Suva, Fiji. The week-long workshop comprised the following meetings:
- One-day Girls Pawa Toktok with adolescent girls from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu.
- Two-day Partners Meeting with selected civil society organisation partners from Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.
- The Pacific Girl Regional Learning Network meeting.
This document provides details about the Australian Government’s investment in supporting adolescent girls in the Pacific. It includes information about:
Pacific Island adolescent girls participating in the two-day preparatory workshop ahead of the Pacific Girl Regional Stakeholders’ Dialogue in May 2018 wrote a song together to express their feelings and experiences. It highlights challenges for Pacific girls, including teen pregnancy and cyberbullying, and encourages girls to believe in themselves to overcome any barriers.
Adolescent girls in the Pacific face challenges because they are girls; and they can also be discriminated against for other reasons, such as having a disability or getting pregnant. In this short video, adolescent girls from the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu talk about the issues that are important to them – such as education and climate change, the challenges they face – such as violence in their homes and cyber bullying, and the strategies they believe will work to empower adolescent girls in the region.
Seventeen-year-old Anamalia Falemaka of Talitha Project in Tonga participated in the UNCRC side event in Samoa in March 2020 titled ‘A dive into the Blue Pacific’. Girls like Anamalia used the forum to share their experiences, lessons learned and innovative approaches at the international event. It was a learning opportunity for participants to exchange information, knowledge and challenges faced in the Pacific region. The side-event involved grassroots civil society organisations in the Pacific which engage with girls and acknowledge their role, agency and expertise.
The Pacific Girl regional discussion: Girls Agency and the Pacific Girl Journey was held in June 2021. Adolescent girls and young women involved in the six initiatives supported by the Pacific Girl program across six Pacific Island countries participated in the online panel discussion, along with members of the Regional Learning Network coordinated by the Pacific Girl program. The convening was an opportunity to reflect with adolescent girls who had been participating in Pacific Girl programming at national and regional level.
More than 60 adolescent girls and young women reflected on the successes and challenges of the Pacific Girl program and shared ideas to inform future efforts at a series of virtual convenings held in May and June 2021. To ensure a safe space for open and honest dialogue, a closed panel discussion was led by adolescent girls and young women involved in six Pacific Girl initiatives across Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia in June.