Tanna

The group distributed 252 bales of rice, 250 bundles of island cabbages and 100 bundles of mature coconut fruits.

The produce was to families in the North West of Tanna who were affected by a drought last year.

The Tafea Provincial Government bought the relief supplies.

Tafea Provincial Government’s Secretary General, Joe Iautim, who is also Controller of the EOC for Tafea, thanked all the youth volunteers for their valuable service to the province over the last two weeks.

The National Disaster Management Office said about 28,000 people are affected.

An official, Phillip Meto, said crops and food supplies have been destroyed by the ashfall from Mt Yasur.

The island was already short of food and water after a months-long drought.

It coincides with World Environment Day (WED) which falls on June 5 every year.

The theme for the week and WED is ‘Pollution and Climate Change’.

The team from DEPC including representatives from the Departments of the Ministry of Climate Change and Adaptation (Climate Change, Meteorology, Energy, NDMO & Geo-Hazards) will be in Tanna during the week for the event.

The team will carry out an awareness and information about the work of the Ministry and Departments with secondary schools around Tanna to help the students plan out their future career.

But a special group of people are preparing to make the long trip from a remote island in the South Pacific Ocean to the United States and create a small piece of movie history.

They're part of the cast and crew of the movie "Tanna" which has been nominated for an Oscar.

The Australian-produced movie was filmed in Vanuatu using local people speaking their own language, and none of them had ever acted before.

The film’s Cultural Director, Jimmy Joseph Nako says his tribesmen are excited but they didn't comprehend just how big a deal an Oscar nomination is.

Tanna, a tale of tragic lovers, has received Australia's first-ever Oscar nomination for foreign language film.

The film is shot in the indigenous Nauvhal language and uses an entire amateur cast selected from villagers.

Director Bentley Dean moved to island with his wife and two young children and lived there for seven months.

The villagers choose to live like ancestors, without electricity and hunting for food with bows and arrows.

The premiere was held in cyclone-flattened village with a makeshift screen made from sheets tied to banyan tree

Less than one year earlier, Tanna and nearby Erromango had been devastated by Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Pam and today – almost a year on, the re-building continues.

A source told the Daily Post Newspaper that what triggered the violence was the theft of a pig by a man from the village.

The source says the alleged attackers ensured the men were feeling the effects of kava and would not respond to the arson.

The source says while no one died all items of value were destroyed, including animals, fruit and sandalwood trees.

Police have arrested 15 people while the victims are being housed in another village.

Just Play Project Manager, Rorona Kalsakau said hundreds of kids turns up for the festival last week, thanks to the hard working staff, Anthony Kalia of Tanna and Dephanny Naliupis of Luganville, Santo.

“On the island of Tanna we had kids coming from remote village of Isini, Ifania and Konomas communities to Lamenu Stadium.” said Kalsakau.

“On the island of Santo, the kids came from Mango station and Chapuis area to Luganville Stadium.”

Many trees still lie where they were uprooted and tossed more than 10 months ago, the trunks of the few coconut palms that were spared sit bare of any leaves or fruit.

Many houses still have bright blue tarpaulins serving as roofs and some buildings have been abandoned altogether, their crumbled remains sitting lifeless in the harsh tropical sun.

Visions of people from one of the world’s last tribal societies meeting around an active volcano in remote Vanuatu, as if regarding it as a kind of all-knowing spiritual force, ranked among the year’s most memorable films.