The trip to Fiji was really amazing and rewarding! Highly recommended to people of all ages!! Thank you for offering me such a wondering experience of a lifetime. The whole arrangement by IVI was perfectly smooth and we were well-informed of the dos and don’ts before the journey started. Special thanks to you as you are very helpful and always reply to my many queries promptly:)

It has been 2 weeks already since I left Fiji. 100% a great place for traveling, volunteering and meeting friends from all over the world. I miss everything there, especially the people and their lovely ‘Fiji smile’. They were just too friendly and easy-going. Our placements in a kindergarten in Suva and a rural primary school in Nadi were definitely the best parts of the trip. I enjoyed the teaching and was pleased that I could really help the local teachers a bit with the progress of some weaker students. (Always worrying about having no contribution at all before the trip XD) You would be surprised when you find out the huge difference in learning levels the students could have in one class, i.e. the smart ones were learning multiplication in maths while some could not even recognize the numbers from 1 to 10. Hopefully, there will be more volunteers joining in the future so that the program can be sustained in a long run.

My time in Fiji was an absolute blast, and something that I will always cherish and remember! Taking part in the road trip was a fantastic program as I got to experience a lot; living like the locals in different villages, volunteering, going on adventures with new friends on the weekends, playing rugby, hanging with the locals and drinking kava, and soo much more!

Having the opportunity to experience true Fijian culture by living in the villages with several families was something that I will never forget. It is such a rare experience, and I recommend anyone travelling to Fiji to take on this opportunity. The Chief and family were very welcoming and friendly and took great care of me. Seeing such a community way of life was really great to see, with everyone getting along and taking care of one another, the kids playing outside running amuck or exploring the beaches – you just had to join in!

Being able to take part and lead kids club in Suva and helping out at a school in Levuka was just an amazing and humbling experience for me. Seeing the kid’s smiles and just how happy and grateful they are for what they have is definitely eye-opening. I have learnt so much personally, that has changed the way I think and see life. Back home we have so many great opportunities and material goods that we simply just take for granted. Whereas they are over the moon to simply go to school and have a pencil and book to write in.

“Oh wow, we have the same birthday” I said gently, sitting cross legged on the floor opposite a woman of my exact age, her name was Kaliti. She smiled weakly. She had been pleased to see me but there was an unbelievable sadness to her that made me want to talk softly and slowly so as not to break her.

It was my third week in Fiji volunteering at the womans commune, a housing commission for Fiji’s destitute. The property houses 124 flats that are rented out for $5 a week to anyone that has nowhere else to go. As a Naturopath, I had come to make house calls on all the residents and do some basic health checks.

Two other women sat with us. Outside you could hear the five children that also lived here playing and giggling. This was my seventh family I’d visited today so I was familiar with the setup of the houses- very little furniture, a small kitchen with nothing in it, a couple of mats on the floor which served as the sitting area/bed for this family of eight and an over powering smell that I can only describe as the smell of poverty.

Slowly this family began to warm to me and through broken English I learned of their story. Kaliti had just come from the hospital after an operation to remove an ovarian cyst. She had been living here helping her auntie who had recently become the sole carer of Kaliti’s 5 cousins. In January, the children’s mother had died from pneumonia, closely followed by their father from tuberculosis in June. Now they all lived here with their grandmother.

The grandmother was 61 years old. She looked tired and stressed. When I asked her about her own health, she began to cry. Through tears she told me that she had recently been diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and fatty liver disease. She cried not because of her conditions but because of how scared she was that her grandchildren may have no one to care for them if something was to happen to her. On her death bed, her daughter had asked her to take care of the children and the grandmother had pleaded with her that she wasn’t strong enough to raise more children. But she had no choice.

The children are all in primary school. They have no shoes to wear to school. They out grew their sandals and now their thongs have worn out too. All five children have lice, ringworm and scabies.

This wasn’t the first grandmother I had met who was now the sole carer of her grandchildren. It was a common story line. Fijian people place high importance on loyalty to family. It’s inspiring. They will give so much of what they have to others even when they have hardly anything left to give.

For me this had been the hardest part of my house calls. Seeing how much help these people needed and yet they refuse to stop giving away the little they do have.

In the world where I grew up, a world that seems so far away from this one, we have so much. A life of poverty in Australia is often related to drug or alcohol abuse or wasted opportunity but in Fiji the people that live this way are here just because of where they were born. The most common scenarios I saw were women hiding with their children from domestic violence, or unemployment usually due to injury, disability, being a single parent, old age or just plain old bad luck. Every family was affected by illness, scarcity and depression. Every house call was another heartbreaking story.

Highlights of the trip:

Home stay – It was terrific! Our family were very welcoming and catered a lot to our needs during our stay there. We had an amazing start of the trip with them briefing us through some historical, cultural, social, political and economic situation in Fiji. It was very important for us as first-time foreigners visiting Fiji. The house was cozy and we definitely felt at home during our stay.

Volunteering – It has been a great pleasure to be able to do this voluntary service with our self-designed activities that suit the need of the students at the school. We really loved how IVI and the school, where we volunteered at, had given us so much autonomy to create our own activities and with the way we carried out our service. It’s definitely something we had not experience elsewhere and with other NGOs we’ve worked with.

Comments on the team, food and accommodation:

The food was great and helped us understand more about the local eating habits and lifestyle. The accommodation was cozy and comfortable. The only thing was that when the weather got cooler and no sun, there was no warm water; but otherwise, everything was great. We really appreciate the team’s effort and prompt reply to our questions and it had been very helpful for us to complete our volunteer project.

Spending time with my host family, getting to know the staff outside of volunteering, and working with the children at the school site.

Comments on the team, food and accommodation:

Everything went well. Everyone was eager to make me feel welcome and to assist in any needs as they developed.

Any improvements to help us be better:

I was volunteering for a limited time, but it would have been nice meeting other volunteers. Suggestions for sightseeing, travel arrangements, etc would also be beneficial.

The special needs school would benefit from continued speech therapy support. If there is a way that I can be a resource in advertising such need(s), etc, I would be open to providing assistance.

Jennifer Holcombe,

My time on the remote island teaching project was one of the best weeks of my life, ever ……. it was hard, hot, uncomfortable and a bit challenging at times but incredibly rewarding. What an amazing school. We have come back with a very long list of very much needed items, so if you feel compelled to help out after seeing these photos please PM me!

It’s hard to believe that 24 hours ago my only footwear was a pair of jandals (thongs/flip flops, flippers) covered in biddy bids and held together by a peg (first day one of the kids stood on the back of it), and today I was wearing black high heeled boots and corporate attire in Sydney! What an incredible, wonderful world we live in!

I honestly could never have imagined how humbling and heart warming my Fiji experience would have been! I have never met a more welcoming and friendly community in my life. Fiji and the orphanage taught me so much and Masi and Mila are amazing!

Fiji you have my heart forever! Thank you so much for all your help I will 100% going back! And I have recommended you to so many friends! And thank you Fiji and the orphanage for teaching me so much about myself and hopefully they gained something from me too 🙂

There’s nothing more fulfilling then seeing how happy them children are and how the generosity of other help keep them that way 🙂

Thanks again Lauren and IVI!

Kind regards,
Lucy

As my term in Fiji came to a close, I couldn’t help but stop to reflect on a few things…

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For those who didn’t know, the primary purpose of my trip to Fiji was to assist those affected by Cyclone Winston devastation. I’d known for a while I wanted to return to Fiji after having the opportunity to visit last year, but hearing the news about Cyclone Winston back in February ultimately confirmed my decision.

My secondary reason for coming to Fiji was to escape the toxicity of my old life at home (I really don’t want to into it again, but I wrote a blog post kind of explaining the situation a while ago…).

Generally speaking, I was very unhappy and knew I needed to get away. My heart also ached for the people of Fiji, who had been so wonderful to me throughout my previous stay. I badly wanted to help, and shift my focus towards the needs of others, as my overall perspective on life was in serious need of a reality check – more or less, years upon years of perpetually ruminating on my “first-world problems” had turned me into a person I did not like very much.

Now that my volunteering program has ended, I find myself nine weeks later, with a dizzying array of thoughts running through my head – foremost, did I actually help?

Sarah, a friend and fellow volunteer I met during my experience in Fiji, recently wrote a fantastic blog post on her website, Enrichmentality (please go check it out!), discussing questions all volunteers really should ask themselves, prior to and during their service.

How can I help? Why I am I doing this? Am I really helping?

In truth, my past two months involved a variety of situations – from enriching, memorable, and deeply moving to just plain unpleasant. I’ll admit, there were moments I weeped for the pleasant chill of an air conditioner, consistent internet access, hot showers, and many other mundane first-world luxuries I’d taken for granted. There were numerous occasions I had to question my own integrity; times I had to let go of all conceit and give selflessly; other times I had to walk away from a despairing circumstance, escorted by the pain realising there was nothing I could do.

Did I help? Am I at all a better person than I was nine weeks ago?

Did I develop more contempt for the ants scurrying across the table than integrity for others, simply based on my longing for the world I came from?

I like to think my head’s in a significantly healthier place now than it was before travelling here, but this experience wasn’t entirely about me.

Elisabeth Rollins (USA)