Committed teacher in the Solomon Islands
Honiara, Solomon Islands
Ursula Borgas

^{Students of the GS Kindergarten School}

An 83 year old Solomon Islands man who has built and runs his own private school is in the process of constructing a vocational school in the Solomon Islands.

Selson Faisi Foukona retired in 1993 from teaching in Seventh-day Adventist schools for 35 years but still teachers and runs his own.

In 2003, Mr Foukona started the GS Faisi Self-Reliance Kindergarten School. The first classrooms were under his house and there are now 90 students and six teachers. The school’s motto is, “Learn to feed yourself” and it teaches the young people to become self reliant through determination and hard work.

The school’s purpose was to offer children who were orphans or from a widowed family an opportunity for an education they did not have to pay for. The school started after Mr Foukona established a community association made up of widows and orphans in 2001.

Mr Foukona is now constructing a vocational school that will offer courses in wood work, home economics, business and secretarial, agriculture, carpentry and motor mechanics. While 300 applications were submitted, only 60 students will be selected.

^{Mr Selson Faisi Foukona (standing).}

Mr Foukona’s schools are privately run, so he pays for everything himself including the materials the students need for their education. Donations are given to the school and his daughter from Queensland, Australia gives help when she can to her father’s work.

 “This year I grew pumpkins on our farm to sell for fundraising for my dad’s school,” says Mrs Hilmah Clifford, who raised $240 from selling her pumpkins.