Communities we Serve

Across Fiji, where a child grows up still strongly shapes how and whether they learn to read.

Roughly half of Fiji’s population lives outside major urban centres, spread across villages, peri-urban settlements, outer islands, and institutional care settings. National education statistics consistently show that while primary enrolment rates remain high, literacy outcomes vary sharply by geography, household stability, and access to learning resources beyond school.

It is in these uneven spaces that the Vunilagi Book Club has worked for more than seven years; quietly, persistently, and across multiple community types, testing whether a community-led model of literacy support can hold across very different social and physical environments.

The answer, so far, has been yes.

An estimated 15–20% of Fiji’s population lives in informal or peri-urban settlements, particularly around Suva, Nausori, Lautoka, and Nadi. These communities often sit close to schools and services, yet face overcrowding, housing insecurity, and limited quiet space for learning at home.

For children in these settings, school attendance does not always translate into reading confidence. Learning gaps emerge early, often unnoticed, and widen over time.

Vunilagi’s response:
At Nanuku, a peri-urban settlement in Suva, Vunilagi has run sustained, community-hosted reading sessions for seven years. The program relies not on external instructors, but on local coordination, older youth leadership, and predictable routines, creating a rare sense of continuity in an otherwise unstable environment.

Urban areas account for roughly 55% of Fiji’s population, yet urbanisation has not eliminated educational inequality. In cities, disparities often reflect household income, parental work schedules, and access to books at home rather than school availability itself.

Vunilagi’s response:
In urban contexts, Vunilagi’s model has focused on shared reading spaces, volunteer facilitation, and structured sessions that supplement, rather than replace formal schooling. The aim is not remediation alone, but rebuilding positive relationships with reading as a social activity.

Approximately 45% of Fiji’s population continues to live in rural and village settings, including coastal villages and inland communities. While these communities often have strong social cohesion, they face constraints in book supply, transport, and exposure to diverse reading materials. Schools may serve wide catchment areas, and literacy support outside the classroom is limited by geography.

Vunilagi’s response:
In village contexts, including emerging work on Beqa Island and Viro in Levuka, Vunilagi has adapted its approach to align with village governance structures, women’s groups, and local teachers. Reading sessions are introduced gradually, with community consent, and grow through shared ownership rather than external programming.

Children living in institutional care represent a small but highly vulnerable group in Fiji. Orphanages and residential homes often provide basic schooling access, yet face staffing constraints that limit one-to-one reading support and enrichment activities. Learning in these settings is shaped as much by routine and supervision as by curriculum.

Vunilagi’s response:
At St Christopher’s Home and Dilkusha, Vunilagi has worked within structured care environments, adapting its delivery to safeguarding requirements, fixed schedules, and staff oversight. These settings have reinforced the importance of consistent volunteers, predictable ratios, and clear accountability, rather than high-frequency programming.

What distinguishes Vunilagi’s work is not the scale of its operations, but the range of environments in which the same core approach has been tested.

Over more than seven years, the model has been applied in:

• Peri-urban settlements
• Urban neighbourhoods
• Rural villages
• Island communities
• Orphanages and residential care homes

Across these contexts, the structure remains simple:

• Community-hosted reading spaces
• Local coordination and leadership
• Volunteers as facilitators, not replacements for teachers
• Books treated as shared community resources
• A rhythm aligned to school terms and local life

The consistency of outcomes; regular attendance, sustained engagement, and gradual confidence-building among children, suggests that community ownership, not setting, is the decisive factor.

Fiji’s education system, like many in the Pacific, is often discussed in national averages. But literacy is built locally; in homes, halls, churches, and shared spaces - long before it appears in assessment data. Vunilagi Bookclub’s experience across diverse community types points to a broader lesson:
when literacy support is embedded within community life, it can travel across settlements, villages, islands, and institutions without losing its effectiveness.

As Fiji continues to urbanise, and as communities face increasing economic and environmental pressures, models that are lightweight, adaptable, and locally governed will matter more, not less.

Vunilagi’s work offers one such model; tested quietly, across contexts, and shaped by the communities it serves.