Home of the worlds’ most accessible active volcano – Tanna Island

Mamma’s Laef have supplied hundreds of washable sanitary pads to girls in schools on the southern island of Tanna, in Vanuatu, via CARE International in Vanuatu.

CARE International invited two of our team to visit Tanna Island in late February this year.   Here’s Marise’s report on her first visit to Tanna.

“Hi Belinda, Our trip to Tanna was very exciting. We did not travel by plane before, so it’s very exciting for both of us.

When we arrived at Tanna, we were scared that no one will be waiting for us but we were wrong, the staffs from CARE International were already waiting.   They picked us up and dropped us at the CARE centre at Isankel. We met with the other CARE staffs, who were all very friendly.

On the first day, 28th of February, we went to only one school called Manuapen. We have to pass the Volcano to get to Manuapen School, so me and Mary were very lucky to see the volcano, but we only stayed at the bottom of it.

The Next day we visited three schools called, Petras School, Louiabeng and Ienuala School.

The girls at the schools were ashamed and frightened, and they don’t ask questions like the students we had met at Ulei school at North Efate last year. But we are very happy because  at least the girls learnt a lot from us, because a lot of the girls, they don’t learn this at their homes from their mothers.

On 2nd of March, we went to Divine school.   We met one mamma and she did not agree for us to teach the girls about menstruation.   I disagree with her, because we know that some girls have mammas that won’t teach them anything like we do.  These girls need to know about their bodies and how the body works every month.

Then we visited Kapalpal school which was situated at a beautiful spot with a very beautiful view to Futuna Island.

On the 3rd of March, we took a training with CARE staffs at Tanna. They were very interested and they question us a lot about Menstruating Chart. We also learned a lot about people from Tanna, especially from the CARE staff, Anita.

We both were very happy to be there at Tanna and also we were happy to be able to help the girls from the schools we visited.

Marise”

Mi lukim yu

Belinda