In 2018-2019, the Vanuatu Ministry of Education had engaged the services of NZ-based publisher Read Pacific to equip Sanma Province, Vanuatu with high quality and culturally appropriate learning resources in each of its schools. The rollout was achieved soon after and each school received much needed learning materials to support teaching and learning.
In the April of 2020, Cyclone Harold caused widespread devastation on the islands of Sanma province, including Vanuatu’s largest island, Espiritu Santo. The damage extended to various schools who lost, not only classrooms but also the precious resources they had received not so long before. The MJF decided that restoring some of these resources would be a positive step and set about establishing the End of Financial Year (EOFY) campaign, ‘Let me Learn!’
Using funds donated during the EOFY campaign and by drawing on some of our reserves, we were able to allocate $23,600 to this venture and provided 17 schools in Sanma province with replacement learning resources, supplied in waterproof storage containers.
The MJF was generously supported by Read Pacific who not only sourced the resource packs, but also offered to pay freight from their warehouse in NZ to the individual schools in Sanma. Each resource pack contains 5 copies of 80 different Sunshine Book titles and a Teacher Guide for the early years of primary school.