House of Restoration

The trip to Fiji in September 2006 was a great success and we met with people from the Ministry for Education, Ministry for Finance, Customs and Shipping. We also met with the Principal at Tailevu North College. The school has 633 students ranging from 11 years old to 21 years old. There are 40 staff members. Ninety-nine per cent of the students are rural based and don't have readily accessible resources. The Principal stated that the students have a lot of potential but the school does not have adequate facilities or resources to give the best education to the students. The teachers need to be creative with the resources they have.
The school's major needs are centred on educational resources. These range from computers, printers, text books, garden tools, furniture, hardware equipment, sporting equipment, musical instruments, automotive tools, sewing machines, microwaves, fridges and much more. Currently the school only has 15 working computers to facilitate the 633 students and 40 staff.
The school cannot afford text books, so teachers need to summarise notes from texts and distribute them to the students. The library has many empty shelves and books are very much in demand (including novels, encyclopaedias, comic books, resource books and any other written materials).
We had the opportunity to walk through the school and we found that some of the classes were empty due to parents not paying or being able to afford the school fees which vary from $37 to $100 per semester depending on the year level.
After discussions with the Principal, we found that the priority placed on education is limited. Therefore, the school is embarking on an awareness program where teacher will go out into the community.
We are aiming to send the shipping container over to Fiji at the end of January. In the next few months we will be collecting materials to send over.