Fiji Gas Gets Schools Cooking

As in the words of Paul Prudhomme, “You don’t need a silver spoon to eat good food”. This would be the case for 2 very lucky schools.  Fiji Gas recently extended their assistance to John Wesley Primary School and Nausori Special School this month with projects the schools were undertaking for the betterment of their students.

Fiji Gas has combined with John Wesley Primary School and the Adi Cakobau School Old Girls Alumni to rebuild the canteen kitchen and to fit it out with cooking equipment and gas.

The ACS Old Girls have been providing meals for seventeen of the less fortunate pupils at the John Wesley Primary School. In conjunction with the school, they decided the canteen kitchen needed refurbishment. They contacted various people and organisations to help with this cause. Fiji Gas stepped forward and provided a dual burner cook top which they installed and provided gas cylinders and a double cage.

The canteen has now opened and is providing hot lunches on a daily basis to pupils at the school.

Ravesi Johnston, an ACS Old Girl and coordinator of the project, said “ACS Old Girls had been giving some less fortunate pupils at the school free lunches. We wanted to do something more permanent that would help the school and all its students. So we set about upgrading the canteen. Many people contributed their time and resources. I would like to give a special thank you to Fiji Gas for the donation of equipment, gas and the professional installation.”

Cooking lessons can be fun! And Nausori Special School has introduced this and a number of vocational courses for their students. Fiji Gas has supplied them with gas to conduct their cooking lessons. The free gas supply will enable the school to buy other much needed equipment and supplies.

Nausori Special School runs vocational programs for year 5 students giving them lifelong learning’s. The courses include cooking, baking, sewing, screen printing, flower arrangement and agriculture. The cooking and baking program is held every week with practical lessons.

The manager and one of the founders of Nausori Special School, Jitendra Bhan said, “We are grateful to Fiji Gas for their help with the cooking and baking classes. We founded the school in 1982 to provide an education for special students from Nausori, Rewa and Tailevu. In the following 35 years, the school has expanded from just one class room to 5. We now have more than 50 students, 5 teachers and 3 teacher aids. We receive funding from the Government but it is only through the kind donations from people and companies like Fiji Gas that we are able to keep improving the education we give our students.”

Hans Reiher, Chief Executive Officer of Fiji Gas, was very pleased to be able to assist these schools. “The school children of today are our employees and customers of tomorrow. It is part of our company’s social responsibility to help the children of Fiji as the opportunities are presented to us. On behalf of everyone at Fiji Gas I would like to thank John Wesley Primary School and Nausori Special School for giving us this opportunity to help their students. Our teams are always excited and passionate when they come back from such a project.”