Australia: Pacific Island Scholarship Takes First Steps

Pacific Island Scholarship Fund Takes First Steps

WFWP AUSTRALIA
MAY 28, 2017  

Empowering young adults in Vanuatu & Solomon Islands

The WFWP Pacific Island Scholarship Fund is a not for profit development program launched in March 2017 that aims to provide young adults from Solomon Islands and Vanuatu with opportunities to access empowering education programs in their own country. The program supports young people who are passionate about getting an education and who align their heart with one of the values and goals of WFWP: "Living for the sake of others."

Through supporting the scholarship Fund, you are supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: ensure inclusive and quality education for all, and promote lifelong learning.

WFWP Australia firmly believes that people's life and sustainable development can be improved tremendously by obtaining good quality education. Today, 103 million youth worldwide lack basic literacy skills, and more than 60 per cent of them are women.

WFWP Australia is committed to solving this social problem by providing these children and youth with education opportunities. Because education is not free, families can only afford sending their children to school until a certain age. As a consequence, youth and young adults do not fully complete their education and their place is therefore taken by foreigners. This creates a tremendous social problem: Islanders become second-class citizens in their own country. With the Pacific Islands Scholarship Fund, we allow young women to receive an education and feel empowered, thereby contributing to the resolution of this social problem.

Success for Jenny Quta

Jenny is 32 and currently attending Early Childhood Education Training at the Solomon Islands National University. She enrolled in February 2017 and received the scholarship in March due to our annual walk-a-thon to support our Pacific island neighbours. Her studies have been going well. She is very excited to learn new skills that will help her become a good teacher. "I feel empowered. I can give back to my community," says Jenny. "My goal for the future is to educate young children to become good citizens of Solomon Islands."

As a newly graduated teacher, Jenny will be employed in a local Kindergarten in Honiara, the New Hope Academy Kindergarten. WFWP Australia has been supporting this kindergarten for years. In 2016, with 2'500 AUD$, we donated solar panels to provide electricity to the building. Thanks to our efforts and our donors, the classrooms can now be cooled down with the help of fans during the hot summers, while teachers can make use of computers to read their emails and prepare their lectures. The school is now expanding into a primary school.

With your help, WFWP Australia will be able to effectively support many other young passionate adults into the development of their education and career.

WFWP Australia focuses its Service Projects in the Island Nations of the Oceania region (Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Samoa). These regions are some of the poorest countries in the world. The 2014 World Bank ranking of 181 nations according to GDP for the Pacific Islands is: Solomon Island (ranked 131), Micronesia (123), PNG (127), Vanuatu (119) Marshall Islands (113), Samoa (103), and Fiji (95). In these countries there is no social security; and EDUCATION is NOT FREE, even in public schools. For these reasons, and especially being these regions our immediate neighbours, we feel responsible for their wellbeing and development.