10/07/2026
Fiji School Painting expedition
In the Last 2 weeks of January 2026, Noel Jenkinson, Denise Carroll and Peter Washington from Chelsea Rotary with Peter’s son in law Stuart Murphy and Peter Brown’s son in law Julius, assisted former Chelsea Rotarian Peter Brown in painting a newly built school in Dreketi Village on the remote Fijian island of Vanua Leva.
Peter Brown, a retired Builder, moved to Fiji, joining the Rotary club of Taveuni island and has worked on many Fijian Rotary projects over the past 10 years. Finally completing the Dreketi School rebuild project has been a 4.5-year project after the original school was destroyed by a landslide 8 years ago.
Taveuni Island is the closest island with 2,000 inhabitants, an hour flight north from Nandi, which has an international airport. To get to the island of Dreketi Village, from Taveuni, is a 40-minute boat ride on a restive 40 horsepower boat. Dreketi Villiage has no power, cars, communications, no batteries, only a few solar panels and of the 200 inhabitants of which 50 are children who need the school.
Fijians excel at collaborative teamwork, like the rendering required. When it comes to individual work, they lose focus and tend to just walk off, leaving the job undone. Hence Pete’s call out for an international painting team.
Read the full story here:
https://www.chelsearotary.org.au/news2/66-fiji-school-painting-expedition.html