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Have we failed Vanuatu
Vanuatu is the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’s primary mission partner, but what does that really mean? Amanda Wells talks to past and current missionaries to find out what lies beneath sunny skies and palm trees.
Search for stories on Vanuatu and you get either paens to paradise or tales of aid, poverty and corruption.
Attracting tourists has become vital to the country’s economic health, with tourism accounting for 16 percent of Vanuatu’s gross domestic product and generating 75 percent of total foreign earnings. Most of these sun-seekers come from New Zealand and Australia.
In 2006, a survey conducted by the United Kingdom-based New Economics Foundation declared that Vanuatu was the happiest place on Earth, according to their “Happy Planet Index”. The index combines life expectancy, the degree of contentment reported by a country’s inhabitants, their use of resources and other such statistics ranging from hard data to subjective factors (New Zealand came 94th).
But Kiwi Presbyterian missionary Jon Parkes says this label is too simplistic. “In Vanuatu there are suicides, there is islandism (racism), there are major land ownership issues, there is HIV-AIDS and heaps of sexually transmitted diseases.”
Jon and Viv Parkes, and their children Phillip, Simon, William and Connie, are spending two years at Talua College, near Luganville. Jon is teaching English at Talua College and also some classes in basic business skills at Navota Rural Training Centre.
Before arriving in Vanuatu in 2006, Jon had visited several times and gained an awareness some of the challenges they would face. “One thing that took me a while to get my head around was the amount of time and energy required for simply existing/surviving; it seems a drain on any productive work.”
But Jon says there are many positives about working in Vanuatu. “Over here it is so easy to help, because things are at such a basic level that anyone from New Zealand could help. The only danger would be a co-dependent person self-exploding from all the requests to do this, that and the other thing you need good boundaries.”
He says financial accountability can be an issue, particularly in terms of where aid money or donations end up.
For more than 100 years, New Zealand Presbyterians have been forging friendships with the people of Vanuatu. Assembly Executive Secretary Martin Baker visited Vanuatu in June. He says the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’s future role will include supporting and engaging with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, as well as continuing to raise awareness of the country’s situation.
Vanuatu’s population is only 200,000, dispersed among 29 islands, with many more islands uninhabited. Thirty-five percent of the population attend the Presbyterian Church.
Says Martin: “we have a country that has all the indications of a poor developing nation. That in itself is a startling reality. By every indicator in New Zealand, these people are impoverished.
“When Jesus talks about the poor, he’s talking about these people who are our neighbours. What is our response to real poverty? The situation in Vanuatu puts New Zealand’s issues
into perspective.”
The New Zealand Government is giving Vanuatu $85 million between 2006-2010, managed by development agency NZAID. The main goal of this programme is poverty reduction, particularly in rural areas, to help support stability and economic growth.
China, Taiwan, Korea, the European Union all appear to see Vanuatu as having a strategic role in the Pacific, with a concomitant flow of aid. Martin says it is noticeable that in Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital, many countries are spending a lot of money creating aid organisations and setting up embassies, obscuring some of the local economy’s harsh realities.
“There’s the sense of a good deal of money being poured into that place. It almost adds to the confusion.”
The Rev Neal Whimp, who served in Vanuatu between 1969 and 1980, says one of the big needs in Vanuatu is training in money management. The way in which foreign aid is used often becomes a source of cultural misunderstandings, he says.
But Jon Parkes cautions against jumping to judgement; “in the West, our extravagance is more of a crime”.
The consumerist trappings of Western society are starting to change Vanuatu’s agrarian way of life, Jon says.
“With radio, Internet, DVDs, satellite TV and tourists, the ‘god of money and self’ is forcing itself into even the most remote villages… with this new flow of information into Vanuatu, youth will have a very different worldview from their parents.”
Jon is aware divergent views exist about Vanuatu’s future; “one staff member here thinks that in 10 years’ time, what happened in the Solomons last year could happen here, with land ownership issues getting out of hand and a change in culture from the old ways.”
Australian property developers have been selling shorefront leases for huge amounts, increasing social tension as some benefit while others remain empty handed. There is no protection against international hotel chains buying land from one tribe, to the detriment of inter-tribal relations, or against massive profits being taken offshore.
Jon says Kiwis need to consider carefully the best way to support Vanuatu. “My opinion is by not helping too much and instead creating ongoing friendships and relationships with churches and people here. Send a team to a village, ensure your visit does not cause any financial burden on the locals, and work together on a project – whatever size your group can handle. It’s the coming over, the sitting on the roof chatting and the hanging out together that really helps; enforcing our Presbyterian work ethic does not help. Don’t turn up and do the work on your own; work and play and enjoy God with the locals.
“In the end, it’s not about the project, it’s about relationships. If you are really serious, raise extra money and host some of them to your church for a week or too; then they can really see all our bad habits in their full glory.”
Global Mission Enabler the Rev Andrew Bell agrees that hosting Ni-Van trips to New Zealand is “stage two” of mission trips. Many New Zealand churches are organising short-term trips to Vanuatu with the help of the Global Mission Office.
Two teams from St Paul’s in Katikati recently headed out one after the other to work on the same building project, immediately followed by a team from Ellesmere Co-operating.
Similarly, Blenheim’s Wairau Valley Community Church is working on stage two of a project started by Tauranga’s St Columba.
Andrew says one downside of this approach is that a limited number of places receive a huge benefit, but experience has shown that if the effort is spread wider but more thinly, “we almost achieve nothing”. By working together and developing meaningful local relationships, these Kiwi church groups are making a lasting impact, he says.
It can be difficult for the Ni-Van to turn down offers, even if they don’t fit well in their context, Andrew says, partly because of the history of missionary assistance. For example, some New Zealanders might decide to donate a truck, then visit Vanuatu six months later and find it’s standing in a field. “Did you check if they had money to pay for diesel?”
Subsistence farming means working from dawn to sunset to feed yourself and your family, rather than producing capital that can pay for things like fuel.
He says the history of mission in Vanuatu has fostered a culture of dependency. “Millions have been poured in there over the years, but we’ve done it few favours. I’m not convinced the relationship should be perpetuated in the way it is. We talk about partnership, but a better word is ‘friendship’”.
Andrew says the integrity of the Ni-Van is important to him. “I prefer not to do something if by doing it I violate their integrity as people. I want us to meet as equals; as brothers and sisters.”
Neal Whimp talks of observing the move towards political independence during his time in Vanuatu, which the country achieved in 1980: “when I arrived, they would say ‘white people brought the church here: you must show us how to run it’”.
He has been back to Vanuatu several times, most recently in 2005 to teach a short course at Talua. He says independence has worked well for the Church in Vanuatu. “I’ve been really impressed by the strength of the leadership.”
He says work parties can be good for establishing relationships “but they’ve got to be very consciously cooperative ventures, not just us going over there and doing something for them”.
It’s better for Ni-Van communities to be supported in building their own infrastructure, he says, otherwise an inability to carry out on-going maintenance is likely to sabotage the project’s intent.
“The main thing about a work party is to find ways to interact with people where they are. We need to continue to look for strategic training opportunities to help people equip themselves, opportunities that interface their culture with global culture.”
But as Jon Parkes says, it’s worth remembering that “my responses are coloured by my Western worldview that is not all it’s cracked up to be”.