Page 31 - Fiji Traveller Issue 1

but trying to find a spot for eight people is hard. home life.
“My team ended up having to curry favor from people who During Suva’s Covid lockdown, Buadromo and her husband
were organising these planes.” cared for her niece’s son Jerry.
Buadromo and her team did manage to liaise with people on “My niece told me she was going back to work, and I said,
the ground, to get activists to safety, including a woman who well because I am working from home, I can look after Jerry
had been teaching girls, and who was now at risk as the Taliban while I was at home. So he ended up staying with us, and that
returned. lockdown was for five months or something, and we bonded. So
“She had this family connection; they got her a [Canadian] we started that whole conversation. And because we are family,
visa. So, we just had to get her on a plane.” initially we were going to do a cultural adoption. But then we
Not a simple matter of course. sort of recognised, because we travel a lot and my husband’s
“I had to call her, and I could hear her baby crying [because] family lives in New Zealand, … it would be just so hard [to travel/
she needed to leave the safe house and go to somewhere else manage visas] so we said, ‘let’s formally adopt him’.”
in the city to get picked up with her daughter at night, and from Motherhood has given her new perspective. Buadromo knows
there go to the airport. By this stage, the road to Kabul was when and how to ask for help, and is lucky to have a ‘whole
blocked, there were people lined up to go to the airport and I village’ of support around her family.
didn’t know how we were going to get her there. So I had to say “I really have a different level of respect for people who have
to her, ‘these are all the things that you have to do’. And she was children, and have more than one child, and have very little,
willing to take that risk, with her child, who is 16 months at the are maybe living on love but are able to support their family. It’s
time, to leave the safe house, go and stand somewhere and wait amazing.”
for a driver, keep her child quiet, and you don’t know who these
people are who are coming to pick you, everything is like a leap Making space for empathy to grow
of faith. Buadromo says she has learnt “from therapy and counselling
“But she said, ‘I am going to take this risk’. She said, ‘Virisila, and coaching over the past few years,” that she thrives on crisis.
I’ve been here before, I’ve done this before, this is not new.’ “[That is] really is something that is where the biggest shifts,
“I didn’t hear from her from the time she left her house until she personally and professionally, happen for me.”
got to the airport, and that was the day they bombed the airport, But she also relishes time on her own, and ensures she makes
and I was [thinking], ‘Is she alive?’ this time, despite her big job, a wide circle of friends, and busy
Remarkably, the woman made it through and is now in family life.
Canada. “I really think that every human being needs to have time on
“But there are many other stories that are not so great,” your own. And it doesn’t make you selfish, I just think it’s really
Buadromo continues. “Some people got to Pakistan but now important that if you are going to be a human being that’s able
they’re stuck in those refugee camps in Pakistan, and no one to have deep empathy and be able to connect with people, you
want to give them visas, they can’t go anywhere. So they’re need to be able… to find time to just be.”
stuck.” Buadromo is well known amongst her circle for her voracious
UAF Asia and Pacific’s initial Afghanistan response was over a reading, and solid book recommendations.
year ago now, and Buadromo says what started off as a political “I really make the time to read, that’s my time, that’s my way
and an economic crisis, is now morphing into a humanitarian of escapism, and I really think it is important because I really
crisis. think a lot of the stresses we have in the world is because
UAF has continued its support to Afghan human rights you’re constantly giving. This is a thing about Pacific and island
defenders, through survival grants after the first ten days. “Some cultures. We are socialised to give, give, give, give and the idea
of our funders were saying, ‘Why are you giving money for of taking anything for yourself is really frowned upon. For you
day-to-day living for activists? But in countries like Afghanistan, to give, you need to take some for yourself, so you can build
survival is an act of resistance. If you don’t give them money to more space for yourself, build more compassion and empathy in
survive, who is going to rebuild that country?”’ yourself to be able to give.”
Beyond Afghanistan, over the past four years, UAF has also As an activist, a feminist leader and a person, Buadromo may
supported human rights defenders in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, be socialised to give, but Fiji, and the world is all the better for
Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Samoa, Fiji, Thailand and India. that.

Growing her family To learn more about Urgent Action Fund-Asia Pacific
As Buadromo led her team in responding to the crisis in www.uafanp.org
Afghanistan, there were also big changes happening in her

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