The Current Condition of School in Viwa Island

Making the efforts to realize the Sustainable Development Goals number 4, Quality Education,
can be the key to improve the energy awareness in Fiji island. Particularly for Viwa Island as the
farthest island of Yasawa island group in Fiji.

Unfortunately, there is very limited information about the current education situation on this
island. The children can go to kindergarten until grade eight of the middle school in Viwa
islands. The school relies on electricity from generators to run electronic devices such as
printers and laptops, with the approximate daily amount of the energy needed for the school is
1.19 kW [1].

Besides electricity, the school also facing the water scarcity problem. Limited access to clean
water sanitation causes the unhygienic restroom (such as composting toilets) and leads to
diarrhea. This issue might result from the water desalination that has been broken for two
years [1].

It is recorded that the school in Viwa received 130 books and 32 boxes of paint donation by the
Heart2Heart organization in 2012 [2]. While in 2018, there was a new library built named
Namawala library in Naibalebale village which is a support from Viwa Island Resort [3]. These
records show that the education development in Viwa islands still depends on the help from
outside the island.

The data of human resources such as teachers and volunteers, the hours of teaching and
learning activities in a day, and the accessibility to the internet are still hard to found. It is
assumed that the school has difficulty to access internet as the 4G internet access is only
available in Viwa Island resort [1].

Nevertheless, despite the limitation of the data, several possible solutions to improve the
energy for schools in Viwa can be generated:
1. Assess the current condition and fix the toilet at school to improve the hygiene. The
challenge of this solution is the highly expensive transportation cost.
2. Build a new community tank to collect rainwater from metal or polyethylene to support
cleaner sanitation.
3. Field survey to see the possibility to implement the village-level rainwater harvesting
(RWH) systems [4]
4. Making a partnership with the volunteers to do monthly campaign and training about
SHS maintenance and water sanitation.

References
[1] F. F. Team, "Viwa Island Needs Assessment," University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2018.
Accessed: 28th September 2019.
[2] C. A. P. Ltd. "Heart2Heart Project, Viwa Island , Fiji."
http://www.chromaonline.com/chroma/paint_talk/heart2heart_project_viwa_island_fiji
(accessed 28th September 2019.
[3] D. Motion. "One of the most remote islands in the Fiji Group, Viwa Island was blessed with a
new kindergarten and a new library."
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kzjvl?fbclid=IwAR0HVtZGdtpOc3KrJLP0ecFvY6TIUjNjwYz
gsuP6un9r4pCzZ3FVHX4XMZ4 (accessed 28th September 2019.
[4] K. J. V. Meter, N. B. Basu, E. Tate, and J. Wyckoff, "Monsoon harvests: The living legacies of
rainwater harvesting systems in South India," ed: ACS Publications, 2014.