Saonleo - Clothing manufacturing and training facility

Why was it initiated?

In 2021, spurred on by the unfortunate demise of Raga, Narelle and Debra Gigina (the first manager of Raga) began exploring alternate options to keep school uniform manufacturing on Pentecost island, train local young people in clothing manufacture and in managing a small business. This was MESCH’s first venture into providing significant infrastructure as part of a mentoring & training project.

What were its aims?

It ticked so many sustainable aid boxes, including:

Create employment in North Pentecost through new initiatives
Make clothing (school uniforms in the first instance) more affordable for local people
Encourage people with a wide range of interests to be involved in a private, community-based business. These interests were to be fostered by training in sewing clothing, maintenance and repair of machines, sales, marketing, computing, design....
Improve community well-being and keep families together
Empower women.

What's happened so far?

The site was selected by Haniel and Debra, and they approved the architectural and engineering plans.

They chose a local builder, and, together with online discussions, we made an in-country visit. More importantly than going through the plans, this visit was to assess, as best as we could, that all parties understood each other's perspectives, roles and had a shared commitment. The discussion was supported by a document with simple diagrams & text. These integrated minor adjustments to the builder's usual construction techniques to safeguard against cyclones and earthquakes.

After the builder was unable to come up with a materials list (if you don't have a screw, the nearest hardware store is at least a week away), we stepped into that role with Debra. We costed supply and delivery and the builder provided a labour cost.

All materials were shipped to the site - though the builder did not check nor safeguard them.

We gradually lost trust in Arnold’s willingness to communicate, identify or respond to remediable issues & labour costs rose exponentially. We projected they would not even be able to get the slab down within their proposed budget.

MESCH discussed this and produced options, including final-payment-on-completion. Without adequate images, verification of construction standard would be impossible. Delivering the news to Debra that MESCH would cease financial support was heartbreaking. We have continued to offer advisory help if Arnold wants this.

Air Vanutau went into liquidation in May 2024 and has returned with limited services. With no viable inter-island flights, the improved communication equipment donated by Hunter New England Health sits in the Digicel offices in Port Vila.

Who has been involved?

Many people put A LO Debra, Haniel, Arnold and Narelle.jpg T OF WORK into this & had significant emotional investment.

Primary: Haniel and Debra Gigina (North Pentecost), Narelle and John Cassey (MESCH)

Since planning started 2 years ago, many wonderfully generous people have helped. At various crucial times, each of these people kept things moving when frustrations and barriers threatened to sink the idea.

Concept and design

Stewart McEwan(Director, Vanuatu Homes) provided contacts for suppliers and put us in touch with Mike Johnson (Vanuatu builder).

Sam Cashman (Project Manager, Hunter Wharf and Barge) provided initial concept drawings.

Todd Bailey (Principal, Senior Structural Engineer, Northrop Consulting Engineers) provided engineering advice and patiently revised this when unexpected barriers emerged.

Daniel Bills (Senior Structural Draughtsperson, Northrop Consulting Engineers) provided architectural and structural drawings.. and then multiple revisions.

Building

There have been 3 major issues to navigate:

Many construction materials commonly used in Australia are not available in Vanuatu or go by different names.

Our local Pentecost builder is unfamiliar with some modern techniques.

It takes a very long time to get materials to Pentecost. You cannot simply get in a car and pick something up from the local supplier. Hence, every single thing had to be accounted for.

We, therefore, owe enormous gratitude to:

Mike Johnson (Vanuatu builder) helped navigate numerous questions regarding supplies and local practices.

John Clark (plumber) advised on sewer and drainage.

Peter Cassey (Cassey McAllon builders) spent countless hours making and revising materials lists as well as painstakingly reviewing each building step.

AND some very special Vanuatu suppliers who put in long hours of unpaid work.

William Walter (Santo Hardware)

Wayne Lance (Manager, Vila Distribution)

Ben Sands (Principal, Vanuatu Agricultural supplies) who advised on more things than I can recall - almost all of which had nothing to do with his actual business :-).

Power

Darren Stemphelet (principal, Solar Technology & electrical) gave general advice on solar.

Landon Blacket (principal, Zero Grid) spent 2 long sessions reviewing energy advice and quotations.

Charlie Davis (principal, Savvy Solar) patiently expanded our knowledge of Vanuatu solar options and went well beyond expectations of a supplier.

Welling and Crossley assisted enormously with generator options.

David Rees assisted with construction advice

John Clarke assisted with plumbing advice

Reflections

We would like to emphasise that we do not hold Debra responsible in any way,

Many factors contributed to this not working, including: “free money” (the community started to charge exorbitant prices for sand, coral & transport—having previously said they’d do it for free); gender dynamics (Debra, not Haniel, was the advocate); the builder's actual “collaboration” perspective differed markedly to his espoused one; an Australian supervisor needed to be on-site for the entire materials delivery and construction process— both unrealistic and difficult to ensure they would remain aligned with MESCH’s core values.

Current situation and looking forward

Some building is ongoing. After the earthquake near Efate on 17/12/2024, some buildings near the project site on Pentecost have cracks. Pentecost is a long way from Efate! This underscored the need to build according to the original specifications and not how it is currently being built.

This remains an active project for us since we are open to requests for construction advice, AND will consider offering support for machines and consumables if the building is finished.

To help with drop-outs in communications, we have facilitated signal boosting - supported by IT Hunter New England health and Digicel Vanuatu. The equipment has been supplied, but no connection has been set up to date in the village.

John Cassey

13 January 2025

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