The Fundraising

THE GOAL - $50,000

THE PROJECT - Building Vanuatu’s first climate resilient school room 

One thing more than any other will inspire us to push through the undoubted challenges of this long winter journey – the sores, the cold, the exhaustion and more. To raise $50,000 for Save the Children, even more if we can, for projects in the South Pacific focused on climate resilience and adaptation.

You can contribute to the fundraising here either with a direct donation or even buying yourself a snow resort. Yes, you could ‘own’ one of the 25 snow resorts we plan to visit! So do it for yourself, get some mates together to go in with you, perhaps your ski club (or any club), your company, your school.

Climate change is the single greatest threat facing the Pacific - from increased storm activity and encroachment due to rising sea levels. Despite contributing very little to the causes of climate change, Pacific communities are at the forefront of the escalating climate crisis. And children are at the heart of it.

As neighbours, Australians and New Zealanders have a strong responsibility to provide support, both by reducing our own emissions and assisting in combating the challenges ahead. This is even more crucial as we go through this strange period in global affairs.

Of course the mountains we will travel through in New Zealand are changing rapidly too, due to a warming planet, with glaciers on the retreat and a reducing snowpack. Connections abound too, beyond just as Pacific neighbours. The Māori, the original settlers of Aotearoa/New Zealand originated from the South Pacific, from such places as Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti.

THE DETAIL - Helping build Vanuatu’s first climate resilient freight container school room 

Across the Pacific, 3.8 million school aged children are at risk of natural disasters that threaten their access to education and learning. Past natural disasters in the Pacific have destroyed and damaged school buildings, teacher resources and learning materials. 

Vanuatu is already one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and, as the climate crisis worsens, tropical cyclones are becoming more extreme. In 2023 alone it was hit by three severe cyclones causing extensive damage. In December 2024 a major earthquake caused extensive further damage, leaving over 60 classrooms extensively damaged. Many children and teachers are still using tents as classrooms.

Save the Children is working alongside Vanuatu’s Ministry of Education and Training at a local level on a pilot project to build climate resilient, solar powered classrooms that are cost efficient, scalable and includes locally adaptive innovative design that can withstand climate shocks. Your generous donations will build and fit out the first of these.

The pilot project will repurpose shipping containers, generously donated by a global shipping company. Their robust steel construction makes them well-suited for use in areas prone to natural disasters, such as cyclones, earthquakes, and floods. The classroom design takes into consideration multiple facets of sustainability, such as locally sourced and sustainable building materials, improved air quality, ventilation and natural light, and the use of renewable energy sources such as solar power for lights and fans.

The classroom will be equipped with furniture and educational materials, including a range of books from Save the Children’s social enterprise Library for All, from their Vanuatu Climate Resilience series. This forms a nice link back to my Library For All, ‘Our Yarning’ fundraising from Alpine Odyssey Australia.

The plan is to have this first classroom built by October 2025, funded by the generosity of your Alpine Odyssey Aotearoa donations.

A Pacific Island Visit

In late 2024 Huw travelled to Vanuatu and Fiji to look at some climate resilience projects, to support students from Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change and to understand some of the threats these nations are facing. It was an all too brief but instructive visit.

CASE STUDY 1 – Act Local - Food security in Vanuatu

In Vanuatu Huw visited the island of Nguna, to see how Fareavau village has developed its own food drying and secure storage facility. In early 2023 Vanuatu was hit by not one but two severe cyclones in the space of 48 hours, Cyclones Judy and Kevin. Much of the country was impacted, islands cut off and communications down. Even in a relatively accessible island like Nguna, it took some 6 weeks to receive food aid.

With the assistance of Save the Children, the villagers began experimenting with solar food dryers and growing extra crops in a community plot. Now, stored in a cyclone proof, concrete room, they have enough dried food for up to 2 months, local foodstuffs that they enjoy and eat.

CASE STUDY 2 – Think Global – Human Rights & Climate Change at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)

In 2019 a group of 27 law students from the University Of The South Pacific sat in a classroom in Vanuatu. Having seen climate change materially impact their villages, their countries, they pondered what they might do to secure their future.

Fast forward to December 2024 and, at the world’s highest court, the ICJ in The Hague, Netherlands, oral hearings began from over 100 countries, asking the court to issue an advisory opinion on individual country’s responsibilities for the human rights impacts of climate change.

All this brought about by Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, some of whom I met to discuss the case and the journey. We await the court’s determination in 2025.