Vanuatu women

New book celebrates talents of Vanuatu women

The new book features work from three generations of women spanning from just 20 to an octogenarian.

Sista, Stanap Strong! contains poetry, fiction, essay, memoir and song.

Its stories span from the late 1800s blackbirding era, when raiders seized labourers for Queensland's plantations, to independence in 1980 and the present day.

Most writers are resident in Vanuatu with others in New Zealand, Fiji, Canada and Solomon Islands.

Sista, Stanap Strong! tackles subjects such as racism, colonialism and sexism head on with a Vanuatu women's lens.

Vanuatu celebrating strong women

The films constitute a festival moving from town to town, called Strong Women Vanuatu.

It is one of the events preceding the official celebration of Vanuatu's 40th anniversary on July 30th.

It features ten women, who have been high achievers in business, community work, sport, and theatre.

One is Liz Pechan, the daughter of one of the country's founding fathers, John Naupa, and a successful businesswoman, operating the Havannah Resort.

Vanuatu women urged to unite, elect female MPs

She made the call amid criticism of foreign NGO's for their involvement in the 'Vot Woman' campaign, which is pushing for 50 percent of seats in Parliament to be reserved for women.

Reserved seats have existed on municipal councils for two terms and Mrs Malachi said critics should instead offer an alternative to potential women candidates.

She's teamed up with another former councillor, Marie Kalkoa, to support women running in the 2020 general election, in line with UN advice for the equal participation of women at politics.

Vanuatu’s Relvie Poilapa and Marie Toto win international women's award

Relvie Poilapa, who works for World Vision Vanuatu, won the Hanson Mataskelekele award.

Marie Toto, who works for Care International, won the Andy Lynch award.

The women were selected based on their life changing community outreach, their engagement in empowering women, being women role model themselves and standing up for what is right.

The awards are funded by the Australian government to recognise the leadership and active participation of women in Vanuatu society.

Rural women building food security

The community-based Food Security project is working with women from churches across Vanuatu to train them on how to conduct their own food security assessments in their village. The training also looks at how to prepare food supplies so that village families are more resilient in times of disaster.

The training has been organised by Vanuatu Christian Council. ‘Food security’ means that everyone has enough healthy and safe food all the time to have a strong and healthy life.