On the 28th of May 2016, a benefit lunch was organized by the Asia Pacific Group of the UNWG-Rome to raised funds for the rebuilding of Loreto Primary School in Tokou village, on the island of Ovalau, Fiji. The organizers are extremely grateful to the Rector and community of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), for making their premises available for the event to be held in their beautiful gardens in via dei Verbiti, Rome.
On 20 February 2016, Cyclone Winston – the strongest cyclone to make landfall in recorded history of the Pacific Basin – made landfall in Fiji. The cyclone reached its peak intensity on 20 February, with ten-minute sustained winds of 230 km/h (145 mph) and a pressure of 915 hPa (mbar; 27.03 inHg).
In a country with a population of just over 800 000, Cyclone Winston left about a third of the population in need of urgent and comprehensive assistance – housing, food security, health and education; four in ten children lost literally everything, their possessions, their home, the family's crops, their school and their community health clinic.
The fund raising event held at the SVD premises was to assist in rebuilding Loreto Primary School – a school identified by the APG of the UNWG to assist. The school is one of two primary schools in the parish of Ovalau, and the one that was completely destroyed. The school suffered the same fate on 1st of January 1993 when cyclone Kina (category 2) struck the islands and rebuilding took six months.
The fund raising event featured food from the Asia and Pacific region divided into three groups, namely South Asian, South East and East Asia combined and the Pacific (featuring food cooked in a Fijian underground oven). The book Club and Exploring Rome provided desert and coffee. Community spirit was high and their togetherness and collaboration made it such a highly successful day which manifested in the dancing and cultural events featured.
All the guests were happy and the gardens were handed back in good condition.
Janet Chang
