When Alson Kelen speaks about the future, he begins with the past - not out of nostalgia, but as a compass.

Director of Waan Aelõñ in Majel (WAM), Alson carries a legacy not only of canoe-building, but of nurturing a generation of Marshallese youth to navigate life with courage and purpose. His roots are anchored in voyaging traditions and in the wisdom of his grandfather, a resident of Bikini Atoll, who lived through nuclear devastation and displacement, yet taught that knowing where you come from is what keeps you from being lost as you move through time and space.

“In the Marshall Islands, we’ve always known that if we want to go forward, we have to go back first,” he tells me.

“That’s why we build canoes; not just to sail, but to remember.”

We spoke in the wake of the Pasifika Futures Forum, where Alson joined leaders, thinkers, and community builders from across the region. The Forum, held in May, was a space of exchange about climate, development, and identity. For Alson, it stirred something familiar.

At the Forum, he spoke on a panel titled Strategies for Wayfinding in Time, exploring how Pacific communities have long understood time not as a line, but as a rhythm: measured in tides, seasons, and ancestral memory. Today, he observes, we have made time more efficient: what once took three days to build might now take one. But that speed, he cautioned, should not come at the cost of meaning.

“It was powerful to see people talk about the future in a way that didn’t erase the past,” he reflected. 
“That’s rare in development spaces. We talk about strategy and technology but forget that knowledge isn’t only in books or labs. It’s also in the stories; the legacy; how we tie a knot.”

These reflections are not abstract. They are lived daily in Alson’s work with WAM, where the future is shaped not in conventional classrooms, but through cultural revival and the quiet work of rebuilding identity.

At WAM, young Marshallese – many of whom carry stories of displacement or disconnection – learn to carve, lash, and sail traditional canoes. But what they really build is trust, a sense of belonging; the understanding that they, too, are stewards of a legacy.

Many of these canoes, though traditional in design, are solar-powered, a symbol of how ancestral knowledge can coexist with modern innovation.

“Our youth don’t need to be told they’re the future. They need to be shown they belong,” Alson says.

“In the canoe program, they build something real. They learn tradition, yes, but also teamwork, respect, responsibility. That’s what leadership looks like.”

He sees no contradiction between tradition and innovation, only the need for balance.

“We can honour traditional knowledge and use technology. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. But that balance can’t come from the outside, it has to come from the community and by the community,” he says.

This is where his message, and the spirit of Pasifika Futures, aligns most powerfully: the solutions to social, environmental, and political challenges are within us. In building a future rooted in culture, we must honour what we carry, trust what we know, and shape progress from the ground up—guided by our own history, strength, and stories of resilience.

Too often, traditional knowledge is treated as supplementary, an “add-on” to science rather than an equal foundation. Alson challenges that logic gently but firmly.

“If we want to be serious about the future, we must understand the past, the things that root us to our identity and give us meaning,” he says.

“That’s why it’s called grassroots. The grass won’t thrive unless the roots are strong. And that starts with knowing what holds them in place.”

As the Pacific faces climate threats, geopolitical shifts, and deepening inequality, Alson’s message is clear: resilience is cultural. The future is not a blank slate; it’s a vaka, carrying generations forward with memory in its sails.

Alson Kelen, from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is the Director of Waan Aelõñ in Majel, and Commissioner of the RMI National Nuclear Legacy.

Lilian Dawha is UNDP Programme Analyst with the Effective Governance and Inclusive Growth team.