Six emerging community leaders.
Three affected communities.
One year of reciprocal learning.

They span up to eight time zones.

They speak multiple languages and carry different ways of knowing.

Each has lived a different experience of nuclear colonialism.

And each has committed to a nuclear-free future.

This is where the 2026 Reclaim Community Fellowship stands so far.

Session One: Meeting each other

The Fellowship opened with introductions. Each Fellow brought something meaningful, something symbolic of their work for a nuclear-free future.

They shared stories. They listened. They learned what brings each other joy, and what makes this work hard.

Then they turned to a harder question: who gets to decide what counts as knowledge?

Together, the Fellows began unpacking Indigenous knowledge, academic knowledge, and the damage done by colonial and extractive ways of knowing.

>> Meet the Fellows and Advisors

Remembering and sharing stories

Nuclear testing has a history. It also has a present.

The Fellows were joined by guest speaker, Benetick Kabua Maddison, MEI Executive Director (and Co-Chair to the NTP) who shared the story of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands

Fellows also shared stories of testing in the Marshall Islands, Qazaqstan, Māʻohi Nui, Australia, and Kiribati.

From Semipalatinsk to the Pacific, they brought history, research, and lived experience into the same room.

A Talanoa, an open space for sharing and listening, held it all together.

Health and radiation

Radiation is invisible. The impacts are not.

With guest speakers Mary Olson and Dr Carlos Umaña, the Fellows examined how radiation affects the body, and the particular vulnerability of children and women. They also named something harder to measure: the anger, grief, silence, and trauma nuclear testing leaves behind.

And they looked ahead, to how affected communities can bring this knowledge directly into the TPNW process.

Working with difficult truths

Nuclear colonialism does not stop at physical harm.

It breeds tension, division, secrecy, fear, and silence inside communities.

This session gave Fellows room to speak about what is hard to put into words. Each Fellow offered their own reflections, not to assign shame or blame, but to name the patterns, trace where they come from, and share strategies for healing, resilience, and moving forward.

Science and nuclear harms

Who produces knowledge? Who gets listened to? Who gets to define the truth?

The Fellows met Dr Patricia Lewis and Dr Zia Mian, Co-Chairs of The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Scientific Advisory Group.

This was not a lecture. It was reciprocal learning.

The Fellows brought their own examples of community knowledge and citizen science, and named the times scientific authority has been used against them.

Their knowledge was heard. And the session opened space for stronger ties between scientists and affected communities.

Telling our stories through the arts

Sometimes the most powerful evidence is a story.

Indigenous artists, John Harvey, Lisa Leilani Williams and Mallery Quetawki joined the Reclaim Fellows to discuss the role art plays in nuclear resistance and story telling for affected community members.

The Fellows listened to music, poetry, film, and visual art, and shared their own creative work too, including a newly written song marking the 60th anniversary of nuclear testing in Māʻohi Nui.

One message stayed with them:

Trust the process. Trust the ancestors. Trust yourselves.

Rebuilding trust, together

Trust isn't given. It's earned, broken, and sometimes rebuilt.

In their seventh session, Reclaim Fellows turned inward to ask hard questions about trust: in outside institutions like science, medicine, and government; inside their own communities, with Elders and fellow organisers; and within themselves, as speakers and storytellers finding their own authority.

Survey reflections shared beforehand named the weight of it plainly, that communities get let down by extractive research, decades of stories taken and little given back, and the quiet work of small, self-organised groups rebuilding trust on their own terms.

What happens between sessions

The Fellowship is not three hours on Zoom.

Before each session, Fellows receive resources to read, watch, and listen to, not as homework, but as material to carry through the year. They also meet privately, building relationships and community away from the wider group.

Because this Fellowship is about more than knowledge. It is about building confidence, connection, and collective strength.

Where we are going

The TPNW Review Conference meets at UN Headquarters in New York from 30 November to 4 December 2026.

The Reclaim Community Fellowship is building space for emerging leaders from nuclear-affected communities to carry their knowledge, stories, and perspectives into that global conversation.

This is Our Truth. Our Knowledge. Our Future.

Rights. Respect. Reciprocity.

Read more about the Reclaim Community Fellowship