Instead she found herself dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and raising her daughter alone in a rented one-room apartment.
Little did she know that years later she would be part of a national team serving the nation - not as a doctor, but as a journalist.
"Life was hard," she says of her time as a young mother.
"I wanted to study but I had other responsibilities."
With her parents' support, Leah enrolled in the Vanuatu Institute of Technology (VIT) and completed a diploma in journalism.
