Tuesday, March 6, 2012

school fees and sad stories

This problem is so big it breaks my heart! It is so hard, talking to parent after parent, child after child, my dear close friends and people I meet in passing and hearing the same thing. Ask anyone, the biggest worry for the future is vatu (money) for their children's school fees.  A father of a family I know has no other way to get school fees but to leave his family and go away to New Zealand and pick fruit. He is payed $80NZ for seventy hours a week. His pikininis are still in primary school and they are having and hard time paying. This year his oldest son had to repeat grade six, not because he was not smart and did not pass his exams, on the contrary he is so bright and smart, I know, I taught him. He repeated because they didn’t have enough money to pay for year seven so they paid for him to go to year six again. The difference in price between year 6 and 7 is only $30 a term.  Another women I know cooks food all day long over her fire to sell at her little road stand at night. She sells it all for 20 cents piece, that is barely high enough to pay for the ingredients, but if she raises the price people will not be able to afford it so her food wont sell. She says it is hard because some times she makes “fulup(lots)” food and no one comes. She said, if she doesn’t make enough she just prays and hopes and tries again. One family had to take out a loan against his small cinderblock home to put their two daughters through high-school, not even college but high-school. He is fortunate to have the option of taking out a loan because he is a police officer, has a home and one of the few paying jobs on Tanna. He still can not afford it. Everyone I talk to has a story, these are just a few examples. To these people education is so important yet most times an unreachable goal.  
The beautiful simple island life, where you work in the garden to get enough food to survive for the next day is changing. Life is changing with Tannas exploding population, clean water sources are running out. It is becoming harder to live off the grid in a world where everywhere around them is changing. They know the only way to solve this problem is through education. Yet their education program that the government has made is so expensive making it unreachable to most.  Earning vatu is not a part of daily life here, for the most part it is not needed until it comes to school fees. You can’t just go down to the grocery store and get a job (there is no grocery store), the people have to work so hard to find ways to make vatu and even then so many times at the end of the day they don’t have enough.  After working so hard and not making it one year they pray and hope for next year and then work some more. 
         The kids need to be educated so they can rise up, be the leaders and make changes. The problem may seem so big but we can make a difference, one dollar, one child at a time. 
The children in Isini village are excited and hopeful that their art work will help change their future by brightening others lives with their colorful depictions of the beautiful surroundings that they live in. The small vatu that I have brought down and will be leaving with them is giving them hope. Even a little bit makes a difference, any donors during this time will receive a beautiful card set made by the pikininis of Isini Village on Tanna Island. The art work will be available for purchase June 1, 2012. 
The children's hearts are touched that you care and they have asked me to say thank you to all their friends in Canada and United States.

2 comments:

  1. Oh Shaina, This breaks my heart. Thank you so much for sharing these stories with us and for bringing hope into these children's lives. God Bless you!
    Re becca

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  2. You are awesome, Shaina. We will be on board with this in every way we can.

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