RIP Déwé Gorodey who died recently at the age of 73
Gorodey was a member of the Red Scarves movement, a founding member of both PALIKA, the Party of Kanak Liberation which became one of the groups which formed the FLNKS coalition, and the feminist Groupe de Femmes Kanak Exploitées en Lutte (Group of Kanak and Exploited Women in Struggle). She was imprisoned three times between 1974 and 1977 for her political activities. She was the first Kanak woman to gain a university degree, a teacher, writer and politician. She wrote collections of poems and short stories and the first published Kanak novel L'Épave (translated as The Wreck). As a teacher, she encouraged the use of her own language, Païci, and later became a leading figure in the Ecoles Populaires Kanak (Kanak Popular Schools) movement, set up in opposition to French state schools Kanak to teach Kanak children about their history, culture and languages. After the Noumea accord, she worked as an elected member of the New Caledonian congress. "My country is Kanaky" -