School supplies donation

[Snoopkat]

Saw a post on the P&O FB group about donating school supplies in Vanuatu and thought I would ask a similar question here. We have a cruise in Dec with port stops in Mystery Island and Port Vila and I was hoping to be able to donate some school supplies (pencil cases that are packed with pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, crayons etc). We have a decent luggage allowance with Virgin Australia so space isn't an issue and it looks like I will be able to do a drop off in Port Vila. Unfortunately I have to be onboard the ship for most of the time we're in port for work (end of year is a really fun time for those of us in Finance...) so I can't really do a school tour to drop off the supplies. Ideally, what I would like is to be able to either give the supplies to RC for them to distribute or meet someone at the port, hand over the supplies and then get back on the ship.

 

Has anyone done something like this in the past and can point me in the right direction of figuring out the logistics of getting the school supplies off the ship and into the hands of the organisation who will then do the distribution? Thanks!

[Aus Traveller]

I know in the past that people wanting to take items ashore in Port Vila have run afoul of the authorities who say they have to pay import duty. If RC tried to pass donations to the locals, they would have to abide by the letter of the law. They couldn't afford to do otherwise. The only way it could work for be for someone to take some bags ashore unofficially. Then the difficulty is to find someone to give them to.

 

One port where your idea works well is Dravuni Island in Fiji.

[ozziepost]

Hi we had planned to do something similar on a Carnival cruise we did in 2015 just after a very nasty cyclone hit Vanuatu. Over a space of a few months we collated a supply of various school materials. When checking in at Avalon to catch our flight to Sydney our bags were over weight due to the school supplies we had packed and Jetstar wanted to charge us extra for these until we explained what the items were for with the result they waived the excess weight charge.

 

Our trip on the Carnival Spirit had to be changed on the run with a couple of ports being omitted and substituted by a couple of others due to the damage caused by the cyclone which on some of the islands was quite extensive. Once on board we had a chat to reception and told them what our plans were. Because of issues with Vanuatu customs duties etc they advised us to list the items we had and when we were ready hand them to reception who would make sure they got delivered to the schools who needed them most, which we did on the understanding that if there were any issues with customs duties etc they would let us know. After we gave the items to reception we didn't hear anything more and assumed that they were delivered to a school that needed them.

 

From what I understand there were quite a few passengers on that trip who had similar intentions and in the end it was much easier to let the ship deliver the items as they apparently had the necessary contacts to do so rather than try and find a school and attempt to deliver the items ourselves.

 

I think that what you are doing is a wonderful gesture by all means pack some supplies and once you go on board have a chat to the staff at reception and be guided by the advice they give you.

Edited May 26, 2022 by ozziepost

[Relaxing Robbies]

We have taken school supplies to Mystery Island in the past. We just took them ashore and asked around for the lady who collects them there to distribute to the local schools.

[Aus Traveller]

7 hours ago, Relaxing Robbies said:

We have taken school supplies to Mystery Island in the past. We just took them ashore and asked around for the lady who collects them there to distribute to the local schools.

It would be easy at Mystery Island. Sometimes there is a group of school children singing and collecting money for their school,

[Snoopkat]

Thank you all. I posted this on FB and got similar comments about people being able to take their donations off ships for this lady at Port Vila to pick up. Given so much has changed with COVID though, I don't want to run the risk of being left holding the bag (literally) and will reach out to RC this morning to find out the process.