The villages of Aumu, Aivai’i and Kae-Varia the Purari, in the Kikori District, Gulf Province are lacking essential services such as access to clean water, basic education and proper health care.
Fortunately, for Aumu village they have one teacher who teaches elementary through to grade 2. They also have a volunteer phonics teacher who gives up her personal time to ensure children of the village learn to read and write at a basic level.
The same cannot be said for Aivai’i and Kae-Varia. The village children are said to make long-distance trips by river, to and fro, to the nearest schools in other villages such as Evara.
Many choose to forgo the commute and remain at home, in the village.
In Aivai’i, locals say the village has a volunteer who teaches phonics but has given up, leaving the village children up to their own devices.
Many parents in both villages say that those who are fortunate to have families living in towns and cities outside Gulf Province, send their children to live and go to school.
Young mother Emily Evara, from Kae-Varia village, has two young sons and a two-month-old daughter. She says that once her sons reach the ages of 7 or 8, she and her husband will make the trip back to her coastal village to ensure that their children have a fair chance at an education in her village that has an established school.
Emily says education is important for children, but in the Kae-Varia community, that need is currently not being met.
The young mother says she and her husband Leo lead the church in the village. She expressed that there is already a lack of proper learning, but cannot allow for another need, the spiritual kind to be left unchecked and not nurtured.
Emily and her husband run church activities, lead services and conduct Sunday school programs. She says this makes them happy. Although the majority of the church’s congregation is made up of children, Emily says there is hope still for the village.
“We worship and glorify God in this community,” says Emily.