Vanuatu deployment update #8
Good morning all
The team are now working at the College in Monmartre. The school is situated on high ground and took a heavy hit from the cyclone as you can see from the attached photographs. Gary and Andy’s work will once again focus on tree triage, making the area around the school safe from damaged and hanging tree limbs, opening up access and generally helping to get the school up and running again.
If you’ve been following previous updates you’ll be aware that they’ve done some terrific work in helping several of the island’s schools to reopen. The priority has, of course, been to make the schools safe and they’ve done a great job in that respect, but there is also an important tree conservation aspect to their work. Many of the fruit trees the guys have been working on are hugely important to the schools and local community as a source of food. Without the team’s specialist climbing and arborist skills, many of those damaged trees would undoubtedly have been felled and lost forever, simply to make the area safe.
Education in Vanuatu is very different to what we’re familiar with here in the UK. There are no free schools, both public and private schools are funded from fees. There are a number of primary schools in Port Vila and also some smaller villages have their own primary school. Most Vanuatu children are unable to continue their education beyond the primary school level. The main reason for this is due to low income wages. Most Vanuatu families have at least three children so it means they could pay 4 months salary just for school fees.
Schools in Vanuatu usually have their own fruit gardens, vegetable gardens from which they grow vegetables, sweet corn, manioc, sweet potatoes, igname and taro and at least twice a week, students work in the gardens. In this way, boarding schools are able to save money by growing, cooking and eating food from their own gardens. It is also good because the students learn more than just academic subjects, they learn life skills as well, and not just how to grow plants, but every Saturday and Sunday they have to cook their own food as well because there is no cook on the weekends.
Monmartre College where the team are currently working was the first French school in Vanuatu, and it’s still the best. It is a Catholic boarding school with 350 boys and girls from Year 7 to 10, another 150 boys and girls Year 11 and to 13, all of whom only get to go back to town once a month. The students and most of the teachers are Ni Vanuatu (this is what the indigenous people are called), but they do receive help from around the world. Before the cyclone, everyone lived on site; in a private house for the teachers and a large dormitory for the students.
There are a few international schools like Port Vila International School which offeres education up to Grade 10 based on the Australian and New Zealand curriculum to children of expatriates, but most expatriates send their children to Australia and New Zealand for secondary school and for university.
Best regards
Mike Metcalfe
Operations Manager
DART International UK