Vaturu District School, Nagado Village Fiji

Class 2

Site of future playground

The school is in the Sabeto district and services two villages plus a number of farming settlements. Nagado is right next to the school, and the second village Nataloa is around 30 km further into the interior and only accessible by 4WD or horseback. 56 students come down by foot or horseback every Sunday to board at the school. There are 195 students (Class 1-8) and around 20 kindy kids.

The school has one computer in the staff room, no library and no playground other than a basic flat area for ball games and a couple of tall sticks for a volleyball net. The head teacher (principal) Mr Meli is overjoyed at the thought of a playground to make the kids want to come to school, to give the boarders something to do after school and to get the kids active at lunchtime so they concentrate in the afternoon.

The school has been involved in a demonstration / experimental project with SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community) which involves setting up small crop plots of different varieties of produce, a propagation shelter and a meat chook shed and the school has been growing the meat birds and selling them to assist with school expenses.

The playground site could not get much better than this. Flat, close to power and water, accessible by truck (concrete), nice red rock free soil and close to the school classrooms so the kids will watch us all week – they might not get much school work done. The view from the playground will be 5 star – look one way and you see spectacular mountains and waterfalls shrouded in mist, look the other way and you see the islands in the distance.

Emma and kindy kids