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| Chris Kernot who was mistaken for Tarzan is spreading top soil while club Treasurer Mark McKenzie and President Roly Mortimer complete the plumbing |
The
Rotary Club of Port Vila held a working bee at the Sama Sama Rainbow
School at Ernas, Vanuatu. “Sama sama” means happiness and rainbows
signify a bright and colourful new beginning, hence the name for the
school. The school was founded in 2009 by Ruth Carlot who is the
Headmistress and it is situated on her family’s land. The school has 55
pupils from ages 3 to 10 plus another student aged 13.
Before
Cyclone Pam on March 13, the school had two teachers to assist Ruth,
but because of the hardship caused by the cyclone, parents have not been
able to pay school fees as before, so the teachers have had to be put
off until funding can be secured again. If they are not teaching, the
teachers become home gardeners working full-time to grow enough
vegetables to be able to feed themselves and their family. The cyclone
has destroyed all of the local gardens and stripped all the fruit trees,
so subsistence farming is very desperate. Papaya, bananas and coconuts
which are usually abundant are still scarce, as are most other staple
produce the ni-Vanuatu rely on for their existence.
The
school which has been constructed to a very high standard was built by
Ruth’s son, who is a professional builder, and her husband. Students
have also helped decorate the classrooms. A group of Rotarians from
Victoria, Australia, travelled to Vanuatu to play cricket in an over
60’s competition in June and tiled one of the school rooms, painted
desks and did lots of improvements while they were here. Rotary Club of
Warragul Chairman of Avenues of Service, Sally Jones, was among them
and she followed up offering more assistance for the school. The next
goal is to tile another classroom and to provide some resources, such as
a projector and library books. Currently all the resources of the
school reside on just two shelves 2.4 metres long in the headmistress’
office.
While
enjoying Rotary Club of Port Vila’s lunchtime meeting, Sally’s crew
challenged Rotarian Morgan Brag to raise a team for next year’s Over
60’s Cricket Tournament. Morgan quickly put up his money with a bet that
he could do it and he was very enthusiastic, but now he has to find
enough members who will admit to being over 60 and capable of batting
and bowling. Our French club members describe cricket as, “that game
where you don’t do anything,” so he could rope some of them in if any of
them are over 60.
The
Port Vila Rotary club, under the guidance of Rotarian Bruce Larkin,
undertook to install toilets and washing facilities for the school.
Rotary concentrates on projects concerned with either health, education
or water and sanitation issues, and this project included all three.
The plumbing design was put together by Rotarian Steve Roberts of South
Pacific Plumbing.
On
the last weekend in September, the club worked on the finishing
touches: members covered the septic tank with topsoil to hide it and
make the area safe for children to play; completed the upstream sewerage
vent; and did minor repairs to toilets and shower. A small team of
enthusiastic Rotarians assembled accompanied by Sarah Kernot. Chris
Kernot was quick to take off his shirt to display his rippling muscles
and get into it, so shovels and dirt were flying everywhere. He looked
like Tarzan in action!
It was a good end result; the job got done with all the usual Rotary working bee good humour and banter.
