Pohnpei Team Attends Global Health Meeting in Montreal

by Dr. Lois Englberger

From August 10 to13, 2006, a four-member team of the Pohnpei Traditional Food for Health project attended the Indigenous Peoples' Food Systems for Health: 2006 Meeting of Case Study Partners, in Montreal, Canada. This included Mr. Adelino Lorens and Mr. Kiped Albert as the Community Partners, Dr. Lois Englberger as the Academic Partner, and Ms. Amy Levendusky, Peace Corps Volunteer.

This global health meeting was hosted by the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE), based at McGill University, as directed by Professor Harriet Kuhnlein, who recently visited our Island Food Community of Pohnpei-coordinated project, June 3-9, 2006, accompanied by Chief Bill Erasmus, Chair of the CINE Board (see KP July 5-18, 2006).

Pohnpei was invited last year to join this project as the 12th of the 12 case studies from around the world. The other case studies include the Nuxalk, Inuit, and Gwich'in from Canada, Igbo from Nigeria, Dalit and Bhil from India, Karen from Thailand, Aguaruna from Peru, Inganu from Columbia, Ainu from Japan, and Maasai from Kenya. The purpose of the overall project is to improve health through the increased use of traditional foods and to produce scientific documentation of the impact of this for presenting to the United Nations in order to help indigenous peoples.

The overall plan of the project includes 3-4 months of documentation of the traditional food system and assessing the health and diets, and then 2 years of an intervention to improve diets and health, followed by a final assessment of the diets and health. The meeting in Montreal focused on producing the first documentation paper of the project, which will be published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The Pohnpei case study was centered in Mand Community, in Pohnpei. One of the major findings was that the traditional food system is greatly neglected. Yet, there is a great diversity of foods, 381 distinctly different food items. The study has raised great community interest and signs of project impact have already been recorded.

At one session, participants were asked what the greatest change has been in the respective communities. Kiped Albert, Community leader in Mand, said this, "We have to value our own things more than what is coming in from outside."

Much was shared about the many similarities as well as the differences between the case studies and respective traditional food systems.

Warm thanks are extended to the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE) for their hospitality at this meeting and involving Pohnpei in the project!