No TV, radio or running water on this paradise isle
(Story dated: Friday, July 7, 2006)

Stromness resident, Dr Kate Johnson, is currently helping improve the lives of islanders on the other side of the world.

It’s not all work - Dr Kate Johnson relaxes during a dive boat trip.

The Islander plane bounces down on to another island strip, a quick stop, passengers and freight exchanged and on the way again.

It could be Orkney, but this is the South Pacific.

The live pigs and chickens trussed up on the floor of the plane are perhaps a clue - no SSPCA here.

I have been a year now on the island of Malekula in the Republic of Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) half way between Australia and Fiji, a tiny state of only 200,000 people spread out over dozens of volcanic islands and coral atolls.

‘My’ island is about the size of Orkney Mainland and with roughly the same number of people as the county as a whole, about 25,000.

I am one of only a dozen or so foreigners on the island, most of whom, like me, are volunteer development workers.

The word ‘volunteer’ is a bit of a misnomer, because I am employed and I do get paid. Not generously, but as much as my ni-Vanuatu colleagues and enough to live on.

I volunteered to come but not to work for nothing. I was recruited through Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), which is a leading UK agency working in the field of international development.

VSO funds its work through contributions from the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), charitable contributions and partnerships with several overseas agencies such as AusAID, NZAID and the EU.

I am employed by the Government of Vanuatu’s Public Works Department with funding from the European Union.

It all sounds a bit complex but the result is that Vanuatu can afford to employ me to help in the setting up of a modern department to maintain their roads, wharfs and water supply.

The EU-funded programme on which I am working is also supplying new construction equipment and support infrastructure, such as offices and computers.

So what brought me here?

I had always wanted to do VSO, ever since I first graduated in the 1960s, then other important things happened to make it never the ‘right time’. Family, children and career all conspired to make it impossible.

In 2000, I found myself single again and with a grown up family, I first of all decided to go back to university.

I spotted a course based at the Heriot Watt ICIT campus in Stromness which interested me and for which I was qualified. I took the plunge.

The Orkney base was an added attraction - we had worked as a family in Shetland in the 1970s and had retained a house there for nearly 30 years.

I knew Orkney as well and Stromness is now my home - the place that I come back to.

When I completed my studies in 2004 I applied straight away to do VSO and was accepted.

VSO has moved on from its student volunteer days and now works as a development agency working through volunteers.

They look for experience and skills and the age range of volunteers is from 25 to 60-plus with an average of about 35.

The high age limit is 68, although I understand that even this is under review and may go higher.

First off, I went to a series of training sessions at the VSO residential training centre, in Birmingham, and met dozens of people in the same position as me, and several more experienced ex-volunteers now working as trainers.

It was serious hard work but with a great deal of fun and very social. Then it was a matter of waiting for a posting.

After several false alarms - promising opportunities do not always come to fruition – I was eventually asked, in April, 2005, if I would go to Vanuatu straight away - and here I am.

I knew nothing of Vanuatu when I was first asked and had to do some rapid research on the South Pacific and its islands.

The Republic of Vanuatu is a north/south Y-shaped tropical archipelago of hundreds of islands spread over 400 miles from tip to toe.

They are located about 1,000 miles to the east of Australia and 1,000 miles north of New Zealand. Only a dozen or so are inhabited.

There is not a lot of land and an awful lot of Pacific ocean.

As the New Hebrides, the islands were administered by a notoriously fractious Anglo-French condominium, until independence in 1980.

The small cash economy is based on copra, cocoa, cattle and tourism, but in most respects it is a rural subsistence economy centred on village life administered under a ‘chiefs’ system.

For a marine nation, there is surprisingly little connection with the sea and fishing plays a small role in the economy.

The land is extraordinarily fertile and there is ample food, water and shelter, but most families have little cash for things such as school fees (there are no free schools) and health care.

The country has ‘least developed’ status in the United Nations rankings. However, Vanuatu exists in a globalised world and urban drift towards the developed capital of Port Vila on the island of Efate (the only town) is well established with all the accompanying social and economic problems of unemployment, crime and health.

Internationally, VSO has six development goals for its work - education, disability, health, livelihoods, HIV and AIDS, and participation and governance.

In Vanuatu the two key VSO programmes are designed to combat the threat posed by HIV and AIDS and to promote good governance, with the participation of communities.

My work is with the participation and governance programme.

The first thing that everyone sees on arrival is the sheer beauty of the place - especially Malekula.

I hate to sound like a travelogue, but lush forested hills rising above palm-fringed golden beaches and azure seas is just what it is - a south seas paradise.

Local food is all seasonal but there is always something available at prices that are hard to believe after UK - pineapples for 20p, huge avocados for 10p, sacks of tomatoes for 50p.

Locally-produced organic beef sells at about 50p for a large piece of fillet steak.

The people are very welcoming and keen to learn about the world beyond the islands, but it soon becomes clear how isolated this place is.

I suppose that everyone used to living on islands knows all about the importance of self-reliance and community, but here it is especially important.

There is no television, no radio, mostly no electricity and no running water.

Transport links are poor and every so often nature releases a cyclone, a volcano or an earthquake, just to remind you that paradise has its cost too.

The influence of Christian missionaries is strong - the country is overwhelmingly Christian with prayers said before and after every meal and every meeting - but Christianity exists in uneasy partnership with the traditional custom and beliefs that are still practised and highly valued.

A lasting legacy of Presbyterian missionaries is the loosely fitting ‘Mother Hubbard’ dresses designed by foreign men who thought them ‘seemly’ wear for women. They have a lot to answer for!

My work gives me a lot of freedom to travel around the island, visiting village communities and meeting people - learning about their transport needs and difficulties.

I am always met with courtesy and interest by these hugely interesting and intelligent people.

In a country where community and the extended family are paramount, they are puzzled and genuinely concerned that I should be living here by myself so far from my family.

I have nothing to teach these people about how to run their lives (they have quite a lot that they can teach me) but I perhaps have some experience that can help extract the best value possible from the limited cash resources available for the provision of public services.

The country is resource rich but cash poor and has little tax income for the funding of public services.

The natural resources service the subsistence economy well but, for a number of reasons including the remote location, they are not attractive to overseas buyers and aid is a vital part of the national budget.

For me it is an enriching and humbling experience and as John Lennon put it “the more you travel, the less you know”.

If I can leave something of value behind, it will have been very worthwhile.

* VSO welcomes charitable contributions to its work and is a UK registered charity, no 313757.

Enquiries about volunteering and donations can be made to VSO at 317 Putney Bridge Road, London SW15 2PN, telephone 020 8780 7200, or online at www.vso.org.uk