Blog Post

T-10 days to Vanuatu and Fiji

Project MARC (Medical Assistance to Remote Communities) operates under Globus Relief and provides medical, educational, and technical support to the outer island communities of Vanuatu.

Vanuatu is a Melanesian island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean (it lies between Australia and Fiji). In the 1980’s Vanuatu took over is own government (previously the New Hebrides) and many outer island communities have been left without outside support since Vanuatu’s independence. Project MARC explores target areas that need urgent primary care (these areas tend to have little or no health facilities or health workers). They evaluate the area and then train local village health workers and build small clinics that villagers within range can walk to. Project MARC’s goal is to help these communities become self-sufficient.

I first heard of Project MARC when I was contacted by one of their volunteers, Beverly, to help design a manual to properly train and educate the volunteers prior to arriving on scene. Over 3 years I got to hear stories and see pictures of a place I never knew existed yet I couldn’t stop thinking about. How could something so beautiful remain so relatively unknown? I have expressed interest in participating in some kind of volunteering effort that provided help to poverty stricken regions. I wanted to go on this trip from the very beginning but nothing ever became of it. Then out of nowhere I was contacted by Beverly to do some more work and the discussion about the project resurfaced and somehow… everything came together.

Fast-forward 4 months and here I am passport in one hand, plane ticket in the other and I’m dumbfounded how they even ended up there. It’s one of those moments where you don’t quite know how it all came together or why and you realize… I’m HERE… I’m actually DOING this. It’s something you always had a desire to do or become and one day that vision becomes a reality… that exact moment of realization is what makes life so real and worth living… making the impossible possible. “To do amazing things” has been my mission statement for a long time and I’m excited that my first HUGE adventure is just around the corner.

Preparing for this trip over the next 6 weeks is going to be very tough. Work has swamped me and absorbed much of my time that I haven’t even got to think about how I will prepare. What equipment will I bring? What kind of backpack to get? What clothes to bring? What to bring as gifts for the villagers? Where will I stay? Etc. One thing is for sure… I’ll be carrying a diary and have a journal entry for everyday of this adventure. I never want to forget it.

Dates:

August 27th 2006 to October 9th 2006

• 4 weeks volunteering in Vanuatu

• 9 extra days to explore Vanuatu

• 6 days in Fiji

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