As any visiting tourist could tell you, Vanuatu is a nation of friendly locals, relaxed ‘island-time’ and outstanding natural beauty.
Scattered over 1,000 kilometres of the Coral Sea, the 83-island archipelago is home to 270,400 people, the vast majority of whom live in rural areas outside the capital city of Port Vila. On these remote islands, subsistence farming and fishing is often the only way to survive, and there are few services providing health, education, water, or electricity.
Vanuatu is also the world’s most at-risk country, in terms of vulnerability to natural disasters and ability to recover, and experiences frequent cyclones along with earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
As the country is made up of many low-lying islands, it is also feeling the effects of climate change, with rising sea levels causing land and water degradation. With only 68% of the population engaged in the formal economy, and an average GNI of $2805 per person, these challenges are placing an enormous strain on rural families trying to meet their own basic needs.
AID partners with the Anglican Church of Melanesia in Vanuatu (ACOM-V), supporting the church to respond to the pressing social needs of the population. The church also extends to the Solomon Islands, but in Vanuatu consists of two dioceses – the Diocese of Banks and Torres, and the Diocese of Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Approximately 83% of Ni-Vanuatu identify as Christian, of which Anglicans constitute approximately 15%.
AID and ACOM, with other Christian churches in Vanuatu, also form the Vanuatu Church Partnership Program (VCPP), which builds on the combined strengths of a number of Vanuatu Churches and their Australian Church partners, working to achieve sustainable development outcomes for the people of Vanuatu.
AID works with ACOM to support Literacy and Numeracy education as well as Water and Sanitation infrastructure, and Hygiene training, particularly focused on communities in the country’s rural north.
Your support of AID is important in enabling this work to continue, helping families to access essential literacy and numeracy, and clean, safe water, sanitation and hygiene.
Vanuatu Projects
Clean Water and Literacy (WASH)
Support the establishment of health and hygiene practices through access to clean water, education, and facilities for people in remote parts of Vanuatu.
Emergency Updates
Coordination and volunteers key to getting things done in Vanuatu
Read about the key role played by volunteers in the Anglican Church of Melanesia’s implementation of development projects and emergency responses in Vanuatu.
Recovering from Cyclone Harold and Responding to COVID-19 in Vanuatu
Read how AID’s partner, ACOM Vanuatu, supported by the Australian Government, worked with local communities to support their recovery from Cyclone Harold and their response to COVID-19.
Global: COVID-19 Update
Engaging in COVID-19 awareness and COVID-19 economic relief is not always easy anywhere in the world. Anglicare PNG staff recalled...
Vanuatu: Cyclone Harold
When Cyclone Harold struck Vanuatu in April 2020, many local church workers in Luganville on the island of (Espiritu) Santo also...
Vanuatu: Ambae Island
Ambae Island in Vanuatu was one of those picturesque tropical islands that we might see on a post card. Then in September 2017, its main...
Vanuatu: Manaro Volcano
What happens when an entire island is deemed uninhabitable because volcanic eruptions are depositing ash and acid rain on homes and...