Current position
Management consultant, Gallup

  Journey of a Lifetime Award
"Hoping for a Miracle", Tokelau.
Tokelauan life is under threat: environmentally, from climate change, and economically, as many migrate. Damian decided to record traditional life and pose the question: what does the future hold for Tokelauans?

His journey reported on the 1,500 inhabitants living on three tiny atolls. The Tokelauans opened up to the ‘strange outsider’ and invited him into "the rock of the village".

In his three months living with Tokelauans, he learned about community survival in a low resource atoll environment - how to noose wahoo, catch flying fish from a canoe, and fertilise the swamp taro. His journey epitomised faka Tokelau - the Tokelauan way.

  Since the Journey of a Lifetime Award
Damian learnt that use of traditional sailing canoes is waning along with the skills in building them. The JOLT award gave him the friendships that helped him to collaborate in canoetokelau, a project that promotes the continued use of these important, environmentally-sound canoes for inter-island sailing. 

The project helps younger Tokelauans connect with their heritage, and use vaka canoes. 

In 2005, Damian won the Society's Shulman challenge award, for the ongoing canoetokelau project.

  Listen to Damian's Journey of a Lifetime BBC Radio 4 show