The story of how four Australia Awards WLI Alumni in Vanuatu turned a workshop they attended into a movement they now lead, and why it matters for every young person in the country

Somewhere in Vanuatu right now, a young person is staring at a message on their phone that makes them feel afraid, ashamed, or alone. Maybe it is a photo someone shared without their permission. Maybe it is a threat. Maybe it is someone older asking for something they do not know how to refuse. They do not know what to call what is happening to them. They do not know that what is happening to them is against the law. And they do not know who to tell.

This is the reality that a group of Vanuatu women, alumni of the Australia Awards Women Leading and Influencing (WLI) program, decided they could no longer simply witness. Instead of standing by, they chose to act, transforming concern into action and creating opportunities for young people to better understand, prevent, and respond to digital violence.

It began with a question

In November 2025, four WLI Vanuatu Alumni sat in a room at Onesua Presbyterian College in Port Vila and watched something remarkable unfold. UNFPA Vanuatu, together with the Vanuatu Police Force Family Protection Unit, the Vanuatu Women’s Centre, and school staff, was leading a Digital Violence Awareness Workshop for 169 secondary school students as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign.

The alumni were there to observe and participate. What they saw changed the course of what came next.

They watched students who had never had a safe space to talk about digital violence suddenly have one. They watched young people ask questions they had been carrying silently. They watched facilitators navigate uncomfortable topics with skill, compassion, and cultural care. And somewhere in that room, each of the WLI women quietly asked herself the same question.

“We watched how UNFPA and the Police and VWC worked with the students. And we thought: we can do this too. We should be doing this too. This is exactly the kind of thing our communities need us to do,” said Leisale Roberts, WLI Alumna.

Five days that built something new

Six months later, in May 2026, the team gathered in a room very different from Onesua. This time they were not observers. They were participants in a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) programme in Family Life Education that was delivered by the Vanuatu Family Health Association (VFHA) and endorsed by UNFPA, alongside provincial youth officers from the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Over five intensive days, participants worked through six modules covering consent, sexuality, gender roles, reproductive health, facilitation methods, and effective programme delivery. Each session was designed to equip participants with both technical knowledge and practical facilitation skills.

It was rigorous. It was sometimes uncomfortable. Discussing sensitive topics in mixed groups, navigating the absence of a shared Bislama vocabulary for technical terms, and sitting with the weight of subjects that carry real stigma in Vanuatu communities was not easy.

But that, it turned out, was precisely the point.

“Consent must follow the FRIES model. Consent must be freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, and specific. Safe spaces are not given; they are built, deliberately, by the people in the room,” said Vasemaca Justine Pikioune, WLI Alumna and TOT participant.

By the end of Day 5, each of six WLI women held something they had not held before: a formal certification as a Family Life Education facilitator, endorsed by UNFPA. For several of them, it was the first facilitation certification of their careers. It was more than a piece of paper. It represented permission to lead, not from UNFPA, but from themselves.

“You cannot lead others through discomfort you have not sat with yourself. As facilitators, we need to examine our own values and biases before we can create a safe space for others to do the same,” said a TOT Participant in a Combined Group Reflection on Day 5.

The Sunday that made it real: Certification marked an important milestone, but the women understood that meaningful impact would come only when they applied their learning in real community settings.

Before they walked into any school, the team spent a Saturday afternoon in a four-hour pre-training session that had nothing to do with certificates and everything to do with readiness. Run sheets were reviewed line by line. Roles were assigned. Child protection protocols were rehearsed. Scenarios were played out. UNFPA, the Vanuatu Police Force (VPF) Child Desk Officers and Family Protection Unit (FPU), and the VWC were each contacted, briefed, and confirmed as panel participants and support partners.

The team packed take-home notebooks for every student across both sessions alongside Bislama reference cards listing the Police FPU, the VWC, the VFHA, and the helplines. The team understood something important: what happens in the room is only the beginning. What students carry out with them is what lasts.

“We wanted to be ready for anything. When you work with young people on topics this sensitive, you cannot wing it. These are real issues affecting real lives,” said Daisy Rose Sipiti, WLI Activity Lead and Coordinator.

Into the schools

In August 2026, the team delivered two Digital Violence Awareness Workshops at two Port Vila secondary schools, reaching more than 200 students across both sessions. The workshops were led entirely by WLI Alumni. UNFPA, Police Child Desk Officers and the FPU, the VWC, and the VFHA participated as panel speakers and support partners.

Every session was delivered in Bislama, a deliberate choice that recognised something the team had learned: sensitive conversations land differently when spoken in the language that lives closest to the heart.

Each three-hour workshop moved students through a module covering digital violence and technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), gender equality and healthy relationships, and practical steps for staying safe online. Girls gathered with WLI women. Boys gathered with male facilitators, including Danny, a Ministry of Youth officer who had completed the TOT alongside the WLI team. An anonymous question box sat at the front of the room. It provided a safe and private way for students to ask questions they did not feel comfortable raising aloud.

The workshops concluded with a panel discussion featuring police officers, VWC counsellors, UNFPA representatives, and the VFHA. For many students, it was the first opportunity to hear directly from professionals who could explain their rights, available support services, and pathways for seeking help.

The women were sitting in front of students who had grown up believing that certain things could not be reported, could not be changed, or would not be believed.

“You could feel something shift in the room when conversations moved from theory to: this happened to me, or this happened to someone I know,” said Ronaldine Tchivi, WLI Alumna.

At the close of each session, students opened their notebooks and wrote one sentence. A commitment. Their own words, about what they had heard, what they now knew, and what they would do differently. They left with that notebook. They left with the reference card. And they left with a new understanding. For perhaps the first time, they recognised that what they had experienced was real, was wrong, was illegal, and was not their fault.

More than a workshop

The initiative reached more than 200 students across two schools and brought together a facilitation team of 18 people, including WLI Alumni, government youth workers, police officers, counsellors, and health association representatives. While these numbers reflect the scale of the activity, the real story lies in the journey that brought the WLI women to this point.

The numbers matter. But what matters more is the distance the WLI women travelled to get here.

In November 2025, they sat in the audience at Onesua and watched others lead. Nine months later, they were standing at the front of their own workshops doing the same. They made a decision, over and over, to invest in their communities with the same energy they invested in themselves. The TOT gave them certification. The Leadership Fund gave them a budget. But what carried them into those schoolrooms was something no programme can issue: conviction.

The model they have built does not end in Port Vila. WLI alumna Regina Heheina, based in Santo, is already planning to bring the same workshops to schools in Espiritu Santo in partnership with a Ministry of Youth officer. What the team started in two classrooms is becoming a framework that can be replicated in communities across Vanuatu. It is community-led, practical, and continuing to grow.

“WLI gave us the tools. The TOT gave us the certification. But what made us leaders was deciding to actually do it. We walked into that school and said: we are here, we are trained, and this matters,” said Ms Sipiti, WLI Vanuatu Alumni Lead.

Somewhere in Vanuatu right now, a young person is staring at a message on their phone. But somewhere else, a student who sat in one of those rooms in August is remembering a conversation. A police officer’s answer. A sentence they wrote in a notebook. A card they slipped into their bag on the way out.

That is what leadership looks like when it reaches the people who need it most. It is leadership that moves beyond training rooms and certificates, into schools, communities, and conversations that can change lives. What began as a question in a workshop at Onesua has become a growing community-led movement, ensuring that more young people across Vanuatu know their rights, understand where to seek help, and feel empowered to speak up.


SOURCE: VANUATU DAILY POST