Learning Together, Healing Together
Home
Stories
Learning Together, Healing Together
By Lucy McSweeney, UNICEF Education Specialist
Survival School is a small community school with 300 students in Freshwota, on the edge of Port Vila. On December 17, when a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Port Vila, a building that houses two classrooms and the school’s library and science lab, was destroyed.
Like many principals across Efate Province, Principal Harkins of Survival School needed urgent support. Now, two UNICEF high-performance tents house a kindergarten and a Year Six class, providing students with a safe environment to continue learning until schools are repaired. With 71 classrooms destroyed, and a further 75 requiring repairs, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office each funded 25 UNICEF tents to meet the urgent need for safe learning spaces so that students could return to school on February 3.
To meet this demand, UNICEF partnered with the Vanuatu Red Cross Society to ensure all temporary learning spaces would be set up in time. Each tent takes seven people three hours to build. On many days, teams of volunteers would visit three or four schools, working in pouring rain and oppressive heat to establish up to 9 tents a day.
Yet despite the remarkable work of the team, we had to contend with the reality of Vanuatu’s ongoing vulnerability to natural hazards. In the second week of my time there, this vulnerability became a reality as two cyclone warnings were issued for Port Vila. I worked with volunteers throughout the weekend to take down the tents until the forecast cleared, and they could be re-established.
During my one-month mission to Vanuatu, I visited 20 damaged schools, ranging from large urban schools with over a thousand students to small ECCE centres an hour from Port Vila— reachable only by a gravel road and with the guidance of the local community. The damage was severe: crumbling walls, collapsed ceilings, and cracks betraying deeper structural weaknesses.
Yet, despite the devastation, at every school, the spirit was one of gratitude—gratitude that students were on school holidays when the earthquake struck, gratitude for what was still standing, and gratitude that UNICEF was showing up in this small but practical way to help. Likewise, amongst the damage, students were happy to return to school, to be learning and playing with friends, and the genuine joy on their faces when they received new school supplies made for one of my best-ever days at work.
This opportunity to support children’s learning was particularly meaningful to me. I spent the last four years of my high school education in prefabricated buildings following the 7.2 and 6.3-magnitude earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011. After first staying with family to attend school in another city, I eventually returned to school in Christchurch amidst aftershocks as my city was being rebuilt. The consistency of school and learning provided vital familiarity and routine during the uncertainty of constant tremors.
While we were at Survival School establishing tents, a 5.9-magnitude aftershock struck. Dozens of students rushed outside, some crying as they relived the trauma of the original quake.
Teachers and peers gathered around, offering comfort and reassurance before returning to lessons. I too was shaken - but seeing the teachers show such strength for their students made me determined to be brave as well.
Having seen the long road to recovery in my own city, I know that healing will take years, not weeks or months. But no matter what, UNICEF will be there to support every child.