Vanuatu trip offers kids inspiring goal

BON VOYAGE: The St Mary's School group of pupils who will next year travel to Vanuatu for a week-long French language and goodwill trip along with some parents, teacher Brent Ballentyne, pictured, and principal Tim Nelson.PHOTO/SUPPLIED

St Mary's School pupils will next year travel to the happiest little nation on the planet, Vanuatu, to share conversations in French and some of their own joy and blessings.

Principal Tim Nelson said travellers from the Carterton school will journey to Vanuatu next October for a week-long stay. The group will include about 25 Year 7 and 8 pupils, teachers including himself, and some parents.

Vanuatu, which sits 1750km east of northern Australia, has been twice crowned the "happiest place on earth" by the New Economics Foundation, despite its listing as one of the Least Developed Countries in the world and the lethal devastation Tropical Cyclone Pam wrought on the island nation of about 250,000 in March.

"A big thing for our community is that, while Vanuatu is recognised as the happiest place on earth, it's also a third-world country and we want our kids to go there to help them understand you can be happy without wealth," Mr Nelson says.

The school wants pupils to be more appreciative of what they have, he adds.

The trip will link the travellers with Catholic schools in Vanuatu, which is a French-speaking nation, as the Wairarapa students were all studying the language and the experience will help boost their fluency.

Mr Nelson said his students have a year to develop conversational skills in French before test-driving their proficiency with the language in Vanuatu.

St Mary's is an integrated Catholic school that also weaves social justice programmes into its curriculum to reflect its character of "helping others to help themselves", Mr Nelson said. Pupils will take resources like classroom and sporting equipment to give to their host schools.

His daughter Allie will travel with the group, as will St Mary's teacher Brent Ballantyne and his daughter Maisy.

Fundraising will now begin in earnest although teachers would pay their own way.

"We're really encouraging the kids to be proactive with fundraising. Each student needs $2200 and we've started fundraising already - we had four families benefit from the Martinborough motocross champs and we a Bingo night last term that raised five grand, and straight away that comes off the students' fees," Mr Nelson said. He said at least two more significant fundraisers will be held, including a golf day. Selling school lunches each Friday will also boost the travel kitty.

"It will all come down to the students and the fact they will have to work hard to get it done."

Mr Nelson said the journey aimed to inspire and reward the Year 7 and 8 students and give them "an experience they can really look forward to and aim for".

The journey to Vanuatu will also hopefully lead, he said, to an exchange trip to Wairarapa for students from the island nation.

"It's not your typical tropical island resort, although it's got that, and just everything I've heard about it is really positive. It will be an amazing experience."