On the sandy shores of Vaiaku, as coconut trees sway gently in the breeze, Tekafa Piliota sits in his small classroom and dreams of becoming a doctor. The 13-year-old, who lives in Tuvalu’s capital Funafuti, knows that would mean leaving his homeland. There aren’t any universities in the small Pacific island nation, which lies between Australia and Hawaii. The country has another problem: it is predicted to be one the first countries to become uninhabitable due to rising seas.
“I would like to go to Australia to study. There is higher ground in Australia, and it might be safer during natural disasters,” Piliota says.
