CAPTION: Chief Guest FIJI Water CEO Rokoseru Nabalarua. Photo: SUPPLIED.
The 235 children and nine teachers at the Tagaqe District School on the Coral Coast have had their prayers answered by the Rotary Pacific Water for Life Foundation (RPWLF) according to the school’s Principal, Emosi Jale.
The school, which serves children from four villages and 11 settlements between Korolevu and Vatukarasa, has often had insufficient water.
This shortage, and attendant sanitation problems, has necessitated the closing of the school by the school management for half days, on numerous occasions.
All this has changed with the RPWLF donation of a 10,000-litre water tank to the school, the upgrading of the old dam at the school’s water source, and the installation of a pipeline directly to the school’s new tank, a project costing $22,801.00 to complete. To ensure sustainability and better suit the landscape requirements, polyethylene pipes have been used.
At the commissioning of the new system at a ceremony held at Tagaqe School, Friday 22 March, Chief Guest FIJI Water CEO Rokoseru Nabalarua said that access to clean, safe drinking water should be available to all of Fiji’s children.
RPWLF, funded by FIJI Water Foundation, Vodafone ATH Fiji Foundation and Rotary Foundation, is committed to seeing this become a reality.
With a water piping system that was installed when the school was first established in 1952, Tagaqe School shared the piping system and the water source with six teachers’ quarters and Tagaqe Village. As the last recipient in the supply chain, the school’s water pressure has always been low, but over the past 60 years the increasing demand for water in Tagaqe Village had created a water shortage at the school.
“We applied to the Rotary Pacific Water for Life Foundation for help after we saw the assistance given to Wai District School at the commissioning of RPWFL’s project there in July last year,” said Master Jale.
Not only are the children happy to have fresh, clean water available all day, every day at school, but the teachers can take showers, rather than collect water for bucket baths.
“They are stoked,” said Master Jale.