Storian blong Gudfala Laef Vanuatu Bureau of Statistics

It is estimated that roughly 24,000 ni-Vanuatu men, women, and children live in housing located on land that is neither indigenous nor formally leased. Many of those in informal settlements are able to lead happy lives. Some live rent free on land through relationships built on trust and respect, while others live knowingly on land they have no right to occupy. And some enter an informal lease arrangement with a customary land owner, paying them an agreed rent on land. The major disadvantage of informal settlement is uncertainty. Recently, many high profile evictions have drawn attention on what is at stake. This episode explores these advantages and disadvantages of informal settlement.

A majority of households in Vanuatu possess basic traditional production skills that serve to transform the natural assets they have access to - indigenous lands, forest and marine resources - into food, shelter, medicine, and more. The presence of these skills, moreso in rural areas, represents their continued usefulness as well as a cost savings and level of preparedness, and they help explain resilience in the face of natural disasters as well as the recent pandemic of Covid-19. This episode looks at the importance of transferring skills and the ways in which skilled households benefit from their possession.

All people have the right to feel safe in their community, and in most places in Vanuatu a majority of the people do. However, in some places, particularly in Luganville and in Malampa Province, more than half of the population do not feel safe walking in their community or neighborhood after dark. The wellbeing of women in particular is burdened by feeling unsafe, helping to explain consistently lower reported life satisfaction of women compared with men. More and more men are reporting acts of violence as well, leading to the perception that town is becoming less safe for everyone. The storyteller for this episode tells of the night he became afraid to walk alone after dark.

Education is linked with wellbeing in some obvious ways, with better health and income outcomes resulting from attaining higher levels. More than ten thousand adults in Vanuatu over the age of 25, however, have never attended school. Many of them are able to live a good life, with plenty of food to eat, a good house to live in, and a community and large family that can support them. This episode looks into the ways in which an "education of life" contributes to wellbeing and is important for all ni-Vanuatu, including those with the opportunity to attend school and those that perform well in the formal system. By finding ways in which the formal system can embrace and make space for indigenous languages, traditional knowledge, and practical understanding, the children of Vanuatu today have the opportunity to have a much better rounded education.

Participation in ceremonial activities is considered to be important to a vast majority of ni-Vanuatu today, and the data shows participation is constant in both rural and urban areas. In this episode, we look at direct participation by the storyteller who has participated in rank or grade taking ceremonies, and the reasons why participation was important to him and his family. We also discuss indirect ceremonial participation as critically important to their success, with many ceremonies consisting of several ritual acts requiring the time and effort of many people to pull off well.

The number of young people graduating from secondary schools and going on to post-secondary opportunities at Universities both at home and abroad has been rising steadily in Vanuatu with improvements to the formal education sector and increased scholarship opportunities. This means that more and more young people are not spending as much time on their ancestral lands, speaking their ancestral language, and learning about their identity in ways that also have an impact on their quality of life.

Does higher education have to come at the expense of traditional knowledge and practice?

The episode this week features a storyteller that found her education had prevented her from learning more about where she was from and, in fact, who she was. Luckily for her, she was able to recognize her deficiencies and has committed herself to learning about her own culture, realizing the benefits that it brings.