Blog: Sit Reps and Stories in Solomon Islands – Oh my!

World Vision Australia’s (WVA) Senior Field Resources Advisor and Photographer, Suzy Sainovski, leant a hand to the WV Solomon Islands’ Communications Team during the devastating floods of early April that struck the capital, Honiara and the nearby Guadalcanal Plains area.  Suzy’s two week secondment was generously supported by WVA as part of the WV Pacific & Timor-Leste blended office model way of working.  Read about her experience and some of the great stories produced.

The question “How do you think you’d go co-ordinating an emergency communications team?” was asked of me on a Thursday afternoon. My response was a slightly nervous but very eager “I’d like to give it a go and find out!” After negotiations between the WV Pacific & Timor-Leste Communications Manager, Andrea Swinburne-Jones, and my manager at WVA, Andrew Wadey, I boarded a plane three days later for the Solomon Islands’ capital city Honiara.

I arrived in Honiara on Monday 14 April, eleven days after heavy rains caused severe flooding in the city and outlying areas.

Some 10,000 of Honiara’s residents were in evacuation centres, around 1,800 houses were severely damaged or destroyed, bridges had collapsed, 22 people were dead and 30 were missing. By big emergency standards - think Haiti earthquake and Myanmar’s Cyclone Nargis - the numbers are small. But it is a big event for Solomon Islands, especially considering the population of Honiara is just 72,000 people.

On arrival, I was greeted at the airport by a WV staff member and taken directly to the WV Solomon Islands (WVSI) office where I met a number of staff, including Country Director, Dr Andrew Catford. There I was briefed on the situation and got straight to work. For the next two weeks I worked around 12 hours a day – and loved every minute of it.

I was asked to deliver 10 smartphones to Solomon Islands. The phones would be used for assessments. Former WVA staff member Peter Weston’s team was charged with planning and carrying out assessments using smartphones. He looked pretty happy when I told him I’d already charged all the batteries!

The Easter break didn’t happen for me this year and, to be honest, it didn’t bother me one bit. I was keen to do as much as I could in the short time I had there. My three-year-old nephew, Max, teased me with Easter eggs on a video Skype call on Easter Sunday. Chocolate is good, but the adrenalin of working on the emergency response was more than enough to keep me going.

Honiara’s Mataniko River burst its banks on April 3 and whole houses, bridges, trees and various other items were swept up by the flood water and washed out to sea. Some of the debris still lays scattered on the shore just behind the WVSI office, where volunteers packed relief items on Good Friday.

People who volunteer their time for a good cause are great – but these volunteers were particularly special. They gave up their Good Friday and some were personally affected by the flood. Staff from ANZ’s Honiara branch also volunteered their time over the Easter period to pack relief goods.

One volunteer I met, Joe Keniratoa, decided to volunteer because he experienced the disaster.  Joe shared “This sort of work will help other people who have been affected.” Joe and his fellow volunteers put the ‘good’ into Good Friday for me.

I travelled out to affected communities with a water distribution team on 16 April where I met adorable baby Rebecca. In spite of what she’s been through, she was very quick to smile, as was her mother Margaret. Their house was destroyed in the flood but they picked up the pieces, literally, and built a pretty decent temporary house, using some parts of their destroyed home - Solomon Islanders are a pretty resilient bunch!

In my two weeks in Solomon Islands, I learnt all about ‘Sit Reps’, wrote many stories, took some photos, had fun dealing with the Honiara media, witnessed the hard work of the WVSI team and even learnt a couple of words in Pidgin -  all in all, an unforgettable two weeks.