Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a young Marshallese mother from Majuro, an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Political leaders there say climate change is a threat to the very existence of the islands and their people, so it was fitting that Jetnil-Kijiner was selected from hundred of candidates to read a poem that she wrote for her infant daughter, Matafele Peinem.

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Watch a video of Jetnil-Kijner reading her poem at the U.N.

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