These are some of the ideas we have for FOTI. Some will depend on either more time or more money but
others we can do now.

What do you think? Let us know by going to the Forum. Any reactions you might have to our ideas as well
as any suggestions for other additions would be great. I wonder how you say “input” in ramari hatohobei?

IDEA 1. Assisting community programs with discussion forums and web pages on which news, announcements,
photos and other material can be posted. Examples are:

1. The outreach efforts of the Helen Reef Project
2. Fundraising for the Tobi and Helen Reef Church Rebuilding Project
3. Development, implementation and evaluation of the Tobi Island Summer Youth Education Project

IDEA 2. Essays on a variety of subjects, illustrated with photographs and other images, including:
1. SWIFT: Southwest Islands Field Trip Notes & Photographic Essay
2. A Walk Around the Island: An illustrated tour of Tobi, circa 1970
3. With a Peace Corps Eye: An essay on 25 black and white photographs taken by a visiting Peace Corps Volunteer in 1972
4. World War II on Tobi: An illustrated essay
5. The Oral History of the Tobian Conversion to Catholicism
6. Tobi Fish & Birds: An illustrated guide in English & Tobian
7. History of the Tobian People
8. Anthropology’s four subfields: Tobian data and anthropological analysis

IDEA 3. Audio Files such as:
1. Historic lullabies (with translations)
2. A 1972 meeting on Tobi (with illustrations)
3. A Radio Australia Music by Request program beamed to Tobi
4. How do you say that Word of the Week?

IDEA 4. Video clips such as:
1. Video clips of assembled images and text on various subjects
2. Video clips of community meetings


IDEA 5. Database applications such as:
1. Genealogies of Tobian families
2. Land ownership in 1972, with maps

IDEA 6. Three-dimensional scanning of such objects as:
1. canoes,
2. fishhooks
3. tools
4. monkeymen

IDEA 7. Postcards: Email a Tobi FOTIgraph to a friend.

IDEA 8. New features pages, with associated FOTI Forums, to discuss, for example,
1. The merits of proposed FOTI projects and ideas for new projects
2. What you need to know if you are going to the US to study

IDEA 9. Interactive projects like:
1. Catch a Virtual Fish the Old Fashioned Way—Fishing Lore of Tobi: An interactive guide to 50+ traditional
fishing techniques
2. Build a Tobian Canoe: An interactive guide to traditional Tobian canoe construction
3. Use Plants to Make Medicine: An interactive guide to several traditional Tobian medicines
4. 100 Years of Island Life: An virtual museum of 20th Century Tobi featuring a room for each of Tobi’s historical
epochs with music, images, objects, and documents as well as a room for imagined possible futures of Tobi and the
Tobian community

IDEA 10. Censuses from the past. Japanese and American census data from Tobi (suggested by Justin Andrew).

Of course we plan to continue with what has become the routine of FOTI, for example:
1. Continued expansion of the Document Archive, including posting the remainder of the approximately 500 documents
currently listed
2. Searching archives around the world for copies of Tobi images, documents and physical objects to incorporate into the
FOTI database; working with museums and archives for permissions
3. Regular updates to Word of the Week, FOTIgraph of the Week, Document of the Week, and slideshows
4. The prompt posting of Tobi material you send to us.


Posted by Pete Black