Open Letter from Sister Patricia[Return to Projects & Developments]
Four years ago, I volunteered to come to Fiji from Ireland. I am a member of an International Religious Community and the mission in Fiji was scheduled to close down because of the lack of available sisters from the Australian Province who have responsibility for Fiji. Prior to our arrival, we were provided with general information about the culture, language and needs of the people. But no amount of information prepares one adequately for the reality. By profession, I am a teacher but I have also worked in administration and counseling. My first six months were spent in learning the language and the cultural values of the people while at the same time looking around in order to evaluate the situation and to establish where the greatest needs lay. 
After just two days in the country, I was taken on a visit to the Parish School. What a shock! The children were assembled in three class rooms, tightly crammed together because of the absence of a hall. The heat was overpowering, 34º Celsius (93ºF) and humidity in the eighties. After the gathering, we were invited for tea but I noticed all the children running to the back of the school. Curious to know what was going on, I followed them. I was completely unprepared for what I subsequently saw. Almost three hundred beautiful children were queuing to drink from two dirty water taps positioned outside a boys' toilet and the overflow from the urinal, directly under the water taps, ran between their feet. One has to experience the sight, smell and feeling, this feeling coming from my deep love for children, to fully understand what I experienced that day. This was my introduction to work among the children of Fiji but I refused to be daunted by the enormity of the task as I believe in education as a means of creating opportunity for people to rise above their poverty. 
During the first six months, I also became aware of the poverty of ordinary homes (most are one-room tin huts) which, for the most part, do not have electricity or running water and therefore do not have access to flush toilets. All that is available are pit toilets which overflow during the wet season and stink to high heaven during the hot season. We only have the two seasons. So, being the more senior teacher, I started working in the Parish School three days a week, taking children from levels three, four and five who had remedial problems. And there are a lot of them. The school is over-crowded; the pupils come from very low income or no income families. The Government pays teacher salaries but that is all. Funding for educational material, sports equipment, cleaning or repair of the building does not exist. Education is not free so pupils are expected to pay $25 (approx. $12.00 USD) Fijian a year. But, as I said above, the children come from very poor families and thus there are very limited financial resources available to attend to the above needs. So this was the situation in which I had to learn to 'BEG' and I am sure that you would do likewise if you were here as the children are just so beautiful. We have mostly Fijian and Indian children, representing various religious and cultural backgrounds. 
Since many good people responded generously over the last three years, the school now has twelve drinking taps with an overhead cover to protect the children from rain and sun and positioned at a distance from any toilets. We have also managed with the help of these kind benefactors to provide playground equipment, a sports field, a dining room, floor covering on all the eight classrooms and some education equipment. We are almost ready to start building a school assembly hall; just a few more dollars are needed but God is good and it will happen. Since the population in the area is growing and with the school making some improvements, enrollment has doubled with the result that the school is over-crowded. Most classrooms which were originally built for twenty children now have fifty to sixty pupils in each room. I have written to the Ministry on several occasions but the answer is always the same: 'No money', but we continue to live in hope. The Fijian language is spoken in the villages but English in the school so the startled look on the pupils' face as they arrived for their first day in school was obvious. I saw the need to provide pre-school education in the villages so that the children could get a basic knowledge of English, reading, writing and mathematics. Our one pre-school is going very well and three other villages are hoping that we will be able to connect with other caring benefactors so that their children may have access to the same opportunity. May the Lord bless you and yours for your support of those most in need, Yours sincerely, Sister Patricia McLaughlin, DC You can Help!You can help - find out how to make a tax-credited donation today. Click here now. [Return to Projects & Developments]The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul - Australian chapterLINKS: [Return to Projects & Developments] |