BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
SMILES, entertainment, and laughter were the essence of the Temotu 40th Second Appointed Day celebrations held earlier this month at the FOPA village, east of Honiara.
With the theme “Uniting Temotu Province for Better Future”, Temotu has seen its fair share of accomplishments and challenges that have shaped the province.
The event’s guest of honour, the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) Governor Dr Luke Forau said the theme ‘Uniting Temotu Province for Better Future’ is very fitting not only for the occasion but Temotuans should embrace this from now and onwards.
“However if we start identifying ourselves by Island or by ethnic grouping, we are in fact disuniting Temotu as a province and there will be no future. We should see ourselves as one people with diverse cultures. This is the uniqueness of us. We need to stick together as one people and speak one voice when it comes to issues facing our province and our wellbeing,’’ Dr. Luke Forau said.
He further pointed out that it’s also proper for all Temotuans to reflect on the journey that the province has gone through in terms of its social economic development.
“Perhaps some of the questions you or we need to ask ourselves would include, what we have achieved as a province in terms of ensuring our people have better living standards. What have we achieved as leaders to ensure our people have improved their livelihood? Or what should we offer to the province as individuals to ensure our people live a quality life or what else can we as individuals, business individuals would do to support our province and our people or what do we want the province to be in the next 10-years or so,” he noted.
Dr. Forau said that the total population of Temotu province for 2022 is estimated at around 25,701 and the total population of the Solomon Islands for 2022, was 721, 177.
“If you calculate that we account for only 3.6% of the total population. The total land area of Temotu is around 8o95 square kilometers. The total land area of the Solomon Islands is more than 28,000 square kilometers. And if you do the myths this is around 3%. We represent around 3% of the total land area of the country.
“And the fact that Temotu is small in size, thus, Temotu has limited resources and thus, I wish to mention this, any extraction and utilization of our limited resources have to be done sustainably. It has to maximize the benefit to improve the province our land owners and our people.
He said that there is of course potential for the people of Temotu to contribute more to the development of the province and the nation of the Solomon Islands.
“To fully utilize our human resources, we must invest in our people. We must invest in education. In this technological age, education becomes far more crucial for almost anything. I tend to believe having a well-educated population offers more opportunities to be explored using technology to advance the development of our province as well as improve our well-being.
“Furthermore a well-educated population embraces a free and fair principle where individuals not only understand and respect each other but also everyone recognizes the principle of co-existence among each other. So we must invest in our people through education,’’ Dr. Luke Forau said.
On a similar note, the Solomon Island National University (SINU) Pro-Vice Chancellor Dr. Jack Maebuta described Temotuans as being unique.
“I would like to focus on this small theme which I called ‘Temotu our uniqueness, our pride, our inspiration’. Temotu we are unique. And in our uniqueness, we are to take pride in it. And when we take pride in our uniqueness it provides the inspiration to try and do something.
“If we look at our province, we do not have resources. We lack natural resources, land resources, etc. We always get angry with mining operations on our lands because we would not have land remaining to plant our food. So those aspirations to be a better Temotu begins not with the province as an Island, it begins with Temotuans as human being.
“We cannot create a better future if it doesn’t begin with you and with us. So despite our remoteness, we have all the reasons to celebrate ‘Our Temotu, our uniqueness, our pride, our inspiration’. And we have been facing difficulties and hardships in terms of our remoteness but we still keep together as a province.
“I don’t see where I could take inspiration from but I would like to acknowledge given the fact that we lack resources I look at our past leaders some of them are still with us. And I’m happy to record that Temotu province has been home to many of our Solomon Island leaders who have contributed to government, private sectors, churches, and for our former leaders such as Fr Sir John Ini Lapli who has the former Governor General (GG).
“The late Sir Fred Soaki a former commissioner of Police and also the first local to be the Police commissioner. Those are our big men we take inspiration from them.
“We have our current speaker of the Solomon Islands National Parliament Patteson Oti. Those are the kinds of inspiration we have to draw on from because despite the lack of resources we have we have to develop our human resources and in developing our human resources Education is the only way.
“So youth of Temotu there is no way we can draw our inspirations, but only to draw on the efforts and energy that you put into your education so that you can become somebody?
Dr Maebuta said that Temotu province in terms of churches, has been the home to the Anglican Church of Melanesian where it has four diocesan bishops and later becomes Archbishop.
“One is our current Govenor General His Excellency David Vunagi. As little as we are, we have been producing good leaders. Compared to all Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM) in Solomon Island they do not have our Archbishop like us. That is our uniqueness, our pride, and our inspiration is our leaders.
“Thus, education is only the vehicle that produces us to be a better Temotu province. In closing, I like to say one small quotation from Andreas Schleicher where he says, ‘The world economy no longer pays you for what you know, but for what you can do with what you know’ So what does it mean with education? Many of us have good educational backgrounds but we cannot convert what we know to make things out of it. Let’s make a difference in whatever we can do,’’ he said.
