A young lady from the Solomon Islands heard about the great initiatives that young Australian students were doing through their S.E.A.T Projects and got in touch with us. When we heard Sharon’s story there was no way that we couldn’t get involved! To date we have had 3 schools (Hopetown School, Coreen School, Rosebery Primary School) get excited to help the students of Grace Divine Kindergarten, a school that Sharon’s mum founded in her home in a small rural village with no electricity, no running water except for a cold tap outside and very few resources.. This is Sharon’s story.
Grace Divine Kindergarten was founded in 2007 by my mother Grace Kirimaoma and my father Benjamin Kirimaoma after they both retired. My father had been an Agriculture administrator and my mother a teacher. Both had the advantage of a good (by Solomon Island’s standards) education at the hands of missionaries.
Ura village is in Malaita Province about 7 kms from Auki town. It has a population of approximately 300 people. This village is typical of villages in the Solomon Islands where 80% of the population live and survive with subsistence farming supplemented by some cash crops. Their lifestyle is hard and very basic and there is little to spare, yet the people are enduring and happy.
Being aware of the importance of education my parents were concerned about the fact that only 60% of school age children (8 years) attended school. They attributed this to the lack of invitation by both children and parents who had “no education tradition”, compounded by poverty and long walking distances to schools (up to 5kms). They saw the solution being to get the children at pre-school age and instil them with a love of learning.
On their retirement, my parents opened the school in their home in the village where it has operated ever since.
All children aged 3 to 8 were welcomed at no cost to their parents and today they number about 50 (the first intake in 2007 was 20). My mother is the teacher and my father was the administrator until his passing in 2010. My parents sought no reward other than the satisfaction of seeing the children learn, explore their dreams and they see them as the hope for the future. It gives my mother great joy the to see so many of the children from the early years now completed their secondary education with many of them duxes.
In 2018 the school building built by my father could no longer be used due to cyclone damage.
As a result, my mother is now holding the school in her adjacent house. I would like to help rebuild the school building and equip it to fulfil the dream of my beloved parents now and into the future even after my mother has passed over. Clearly to do this requires help and resources not available to my village or myself…..”
Sharon Frank
