Interhouse competitions, Area Office visits, new CITVS program start.

 These boys found some sacrament cups and were using them as eye glasses. The things kids do never change regardless of where you are.

I have been attending the different district meetings, which are held on Wednesdays, to train the Elders on bicycle maintenance. After a recent district meeting the Elders and I went to a local restaurant called Titarbakki (pronounced Starbucks). It is one of only 2 places on the island that you can get a hamburger, when there is hamburger available.

Wall map of the Kiribati part of the mission including the outer islands. Kirtimati island assignments are not showing up. They are to the right of the picture.

One of our other duties is bicycles. This is a picture of our truck loaded with new bikes. We had a large influx of new missionaries but didn't have enough bikes to supply all of them.

We also are responsible for missionary housing. If the landlord cannot fix it then I do it for them. Things that the missionaries damage I fix. This was a door that a missionary punched. We can't just replace many of these doors because they are homemade with their own dimensions. I had to take the door off, put a new hardboard face on it, and then reinstall the handle.

Interschool sport competitions were earlier this year than last year. The kids all had a great time at the Bairiki Sports complex cheering on their teams. As I mentioned last year the teams are named after different prophets.

We had Pacific Area Office visitors come to do some training. The first week we had our TVET manager, Ameet Kumar come with Oto ? from Tonga. Oto oversees the MIT curriculum we use for our CITVS (Certificate In Technical Vocational Skills) program. They came to see how the program is going here at Moroni. They also did some training while they were here. We had a lot of questions on implementing the new program which they answered and clarified what was expected. We also had additional training on Lesson Plans.

This is Oto. He was a very knowledgeable and nice man.

Oto and I at the Relief Society birthday party.

Susan and the other Sisters dancing.

Susan cutting the cakes with the traditional plastic spoon

The feast afterwards

The next week we had the Area Coordinators for the ITEP/TVET programs, Elder & Sister Holbrook, come to visit us along with Jonathan Warwick the Area Curriculum Manager. Being from the USA the Holbrooks wanted to see the US war Memorial here on Tarawa.

They held an all day training for the teachers with several breakout workshops. Here Jonathan is using a chainsaw as a prop to teach the concept of always needing to sharpen our tools to accomplish the work needed.

We went to dinner the last night and had a nice meal and visit.

The new CITVS program exposes students to 4 different vocations and teaches them basic skills in those areas. It is a 2 year program taught in 4 semesters. At Moroni the 4 areas are Form 4 students learn Automotive and Hospitality. Form 5 students learn Horticulture and Carpentry.

Here are some form 4 automotive students

Here are some form 5 Carpentry students working on the drawings & plans module.

The new miter saw and stand.

Along with implementing this new program we are working on establishing a partnership with the Kiribati Institute of Technology, aka KIT, to provide a TVET learning stream for our students. By completing the CITVS program it provides a path for the students to pick a specialized field to go into at KIT. After they complete CITVS they can choose Carpentry or Automotive to specialize in. Then in their Form 6 year they will take an advanced class in that area of study. Then in their Form 7 year KIT will allow these students to continue on in that field of study at their school. Because Horticulture is not a program offered at KIT we are in the midst of changing it to Electrical. That would give us 3 areas students could then choose to specialize in.
The Hospitality area of study is offered at the Marine Training Center. That school is where shipping and Cruise-line skills are taught. We will be meeting with them also to establish a learning stream into their program from our CITVS program.

I am excited for these and future students here at Moroni. This program will provide those students who do not go into an academic stream of learning an opportunity to go into a vocational stream of learning that also has the potential to continue on to a 4 year degree at a university in an area such as Construction Management or Business Management.