TAIPEI, Taiwan (Marshall Islands Journal/ Marianas Variety/ Radio Australia/ Pacific Media Watch): Nineteen years after her death from cancer, Marshall Islander Darlene Keju is being honored in Taiwan this week with the Global Love of Lives award from a Taipei non-profit foundation.
The Chou Ta-Kuan Educational and Cultural Foundation is honoring 19 people from around the world in an annual ceremony launched 18 years ago following the death of the foundation’s namesake, a Taiwanese boy who died at 10 from cancer.
Keju exposed a United States cover up of nuclear test-caused health problems in her islands and later formed the internationally recognised non-profit group Youth to Youth in Health in the Marshall Islands.
She is being represented in Taiwan this week by Marshall Islands Journal newspaper editor Giff Johnson, her husband of 14 years.
The Chou Ta-Kuan Foundation described Keju as “the Environmental Godmother” of the Marshall Islands who revealed the story of the 67 US nuclear weapons tests at Bikini and Enewetak to protect the safety and health of Marshall Islanders.
Despite Keju’s death in 1996, the youth health organisation she established continues “providing Marshall Islanders with healthcare services and youth leadership training programmes,” said the foundation.
Continue reading at MARSHALL ISLANDS: Advocate for nuclear test victims honoured in Taiwan
