Archive for October, 2009
Monday, October 26th, 2009
[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]
Public health is a human rights issue. Medical services, though, are ultimately ruled by economics. The tension between the two will never be resolved. It will, however, shape our future in ways that are impossible to measure.
This morning over coffee, I received news that the 15 year old daughter of a friend had passed away. She’d been ill for over a month, but a full diagnosis was never made. All anyone knew was that her head ached terribly.
Within an hour of hearing this, I learned of the untimely death of Ture Kailo, MP for TAFEA Outer Islands.
Ture was well known in Vanuatu. During his tenure as DG of the Ministry of Youth Development and Training, he was a consistent champion of youth issues and a friend to many local NGOs. Many took heart when, after his politically motivated ouster from the Ministry, he announced his candidacy for national office. Everyone I spoke to expressed deep regret at his passing, noting that Vanuatu politics has suffered a real and measurable loss.
Cases like these often define the debate over national health care policy. The loss of prominent individuals like Kailo demonstrate in unambiguous terms just how much we stand to lose when we lose a single life.
But what of my friend’s young daughter? The magnitude of her mother’s loss is of course immeasurable. And who can tell what she might have achieved?
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Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
La réception officielle d’un ATR 72 (68 sièges) neuf, acquis par Air Vanuatu, a été marquée, le 15 octobre, par une cérémonie réunissant à l’aéroport international,)
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
M. Jean-Yves CLAVEL, récemment nommé Directeur de l’Agence régionale de l’AFD (Agence Française de Développement) à Nouméa, en remplacement de M. Luc SUPERA, a effectué une première visite de travail au Vanuatu du 19 au 23 octobre.)
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Monday, October 19th, 2009
Mme Françoise Maylié, Ambassadrice de France au Vanuatu, et Mme Marie Melteras, Directrice du Centre Technique et de Recherche Agronomique du Vanuatu (CTRAV), ont procédé, le mardi 6 octobre à la signature d’une convention de financement destinée à la réalisation d’une étude des bases génétiques de la patate douce en Océanie.)
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Monday, October 19th, 2009
La réception officielle d’un ATR 72 (68 sièges) neuf, acquis par Air Vanuatu, a été marquée, le 15 octobre, par une cérémonie réunissant à l’aéroport international,)
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Sunday, October 18th, 2009
[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]
When I learned of the release of this year’s Pacific Economic Survey, I was excited. I shouldn’t have been. The contrast between the 2008 report and this year’s could not be stronger. How could something so promising have fallen so far so fast?
When a player fails, you blame the player. When a team fails, you blame the coach.
Produced by the Australian government, the Survey looks at economic trends across the region and maps them to major development issues. Or, at least, that’s the game plan.
The 2008 report provided timely and useful assessments of telecoms and transport sector liberalisation. It was an enlightening document that validated some of Vanuatu’s key policies as well as providing analysis concerning future trends. I found it useful enough that I wrote about it or referenced it 7 times over the course of the year.
This year, I expect to write about the survey just this once. The 2009 report seems to be animated primarily by the Australian government’s desire to see a regional free trade agreement. The Survey sacrifices common sense and ignores its own data in its quest to glorify liberal trade policies that simply do not fit with the economic realities in Vanuatu today.
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Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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Sunday, October 18th, 2009
[Originally published in the Vanuatu Independent newspaper.]
A number of Port Vila schools have recently begun to take the Internet seriously. Assisted by veteran and novice IT volunteers, they’ve invested their meagre computing resources in an undertaking designed to help teachers create a richer and more open learning environment.
As with all things, it started small. Circumstance threw a few IT professionals together and led them to collaborate to improve their own children’s education. One thing led to another, and now we’re beginning to see the first fruits of integration of technology with teaching in Vanuatu.
The story begins five months ago when four parents, all of them seasoned IT professionals, began to chat about how to improve conditions at Central School, where their children were enrolled. Before very long they were at the core of a group of over 30 parents and teachers, all devoted to taking advantage of computers and the Internet in order to improve the quality of education.
This may sound familiar. It’s not the first time in Vanuatu that parents have moved mountains one pebble at a time to supplement their school’s limited resources. Nor is it the first time that teachers have been able to indulge their personal and professional enthusiasm for their vocation by working with the community at large.
But there are a few unique aspects to this story.
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Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Two doves flee like untold secrets from the lane
Where fallen frangipani moulder. Sweet decay.
Behind and up, the hillside’s clad in mauve
Petals strewn like candy wrappers tossed
Aside, insouciant, by adolescent hands.
These hands. These hands are holding hands
In fervent, sweating, anxious rhapsody.
Aching out hilarity, too close to see the comedy.
A ten year old with awkward teeth, all knees
And elbows, nestles in the crook between the boughs
And spies upon the lovers, mystified.
The world, alas, is far too rushed to ever tell the truth.
Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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Sunday, October 11th, 2009
[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]
A friend of mine recently completed a photography project documenting the people of Dhaka, Bangladesh. These 265 mostly candid portraits capture what I like to call the miracle of the mundane. Without editorialising, they create a compelling polemic for the inherent dignity of every human being.
They’re noteworthy precisely because they’re not newsworthy.
If you were to ask me what animates me, what makes me take on the labours of love that fill my time to brimming, I would likely point to something like this. I’ve often been accused of being an idealist, but that’s only partly true. The ideals that I aspire to are simple:
We should have the right to a peaceful, respectful existence, with all the rights and responsibilities that this entails.
We should be able to choose which dramas and adventures we become involved in. Those we can’t choose should never grow so large that we lose all choice whatsoever.
One of the most alluring and endearing aspects of life in Vanuatu is our collective ability to drift along with few cares and few (sometimes too few!) responsibilities. The machinery of government grinds and chugs on by like a smoking bus with three cylinders firing, but aside from a bit of smoke and noise, leaves us largely unscathed.
Recent events, especially last Thursday’s tsunami warning, serve as a reminder just how fortunate we are. Within an hour of the alert being issued, news agencies the world over were contacting the Daily Post. Intent on the next human tragedy, they wanted to know: How much damage? How many dead?
The answer, happily, was that only one young girl was hurt when she ran in front of a moving truck.
Had a similar area in virtually anywhere else in the world been struck as we were by 3 earthquakes in quick succession, each in excess of 7.0, thousands, even millions might have suffered.
The simplicity of our existence – our lack of development – has in many ways saved us from the worst. If we didn’t have so little, we might have more to lose.
Life goes on today as it did the day before. We worry about where the next bag of rice is going to come from. We ruin our sandals in the mud. We bicker and fuss our way through petty jealousies. And we laugh at every opportunity.
In a place where the worst example of anarchy we can find is a dozen children playing on the beach, where the sum of our fears extend no more than a few miles from home, where even a hurricane is more frightening than deadly, we should really consider ourselves blessed.
But that should never make us complacent. For all its manifold blessings, Vanuatu society is still fraught with imperfection. Violence may not be institutionalised, but it is systemic. Too many women and children, safe from the predations of the state, are nonetheless victims in their own homes. Family, stronger here than in most other societies, is increasingly strained by distance and economic forces.
The difference between Vanuatu and its more turbulent Melanesian neighbours is as much one of luck as anything else. We all have corruption, venality, social and economic tensions and occasional violence. But for some reason, Vanuatu always pulls back from the brink.
How is this? What exactly is it that has allowed us to avoid the worst excesses of violence, economic and social dispossession? I honestly don’t know. If I were forced to answer, I’d likely wave my hands vaguely and mutter something about how people just don’t like things getting out of hand.
During the incipient insurrection some years ago between Police and Mobile forces, a besieged Police commander delivered an impassioned speech to the throng assembled behind the VMF picket. What began as an angry oratory culminated in a series of (ultimately tearful) apologies to everyone concerned for having caused such a ruckus. By observing the rhetorical forms of public oratory, the rebel leader defused his own obduracy.
We are a decent society, therefore, because we are used to acting like decent people.
Conclusions like this are dangerous. Too often, they lead only to self-satisfied complacency. As one chief explained it to me, it’s as if we are given the gift of a lovely garden with bountiful fruit trees. With such abundance, it becomes difficult to see the sweat and the toil that went into clearing the ground, the care and attention that allowed the tiny seed to become an adult tree.
It’s far too easy as well to assume that the tree will continue to bear fruit forever.
Thursday’s tsunami warning was a false alarm. But there is another tsunami approaching whose effects will be more widespread and, if we don’t prepare for them, more devastating than anything the ocean could do.
As development continues its inexorable spread through Vanuatu society, we must ensure that our politicians and policy makers never lose sight of individual faces of the people on whose behalf they were chosen to work.
They aren’t newsworthy, but they are noteworthy. They are us.
Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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Sunday, October 11th, 2009
‘Storian hemi laef blong yumi’ – Telecom Vanuatu’s new slogan could not be more true.
In times of crisis, communication and coordination enable us to survive and to recover quickly.
When an earthquake occured between Samoa and Tonga early in the morning of September 29th, it created a tsunami that struck the inhabitants on the eastern and southeastern parts of the island within minutes. Sirens sounded and church bells rang all over side of the island, sending people fleeing to higher ground.
The latest reports from Samoa indicate that in addition to at least 149 dead, 640 families comprising roughly 3200 people have lost their homes and possessions. Most have yet to to return to their villages, and are without proper access to power, water and other basic amenities.
Food, water, clothing and shelter are all critical elements of the relief effort.
Equally important is the ability to communicate.
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Originally published at the Scriptorum. You can comment here or there.
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