From Our Community

Samoa Measles Epidemic

From Irra Walshe, 0424 312 453, co-founder project fatu | vic 3051 | abn 99158261650

My children attend our wonderful school, Pouey, Vaiola, Bruce and Donovan Walshe. I work in mental health, but also run a small non-for-profit organisation called Project Fatu. I am of Samoan ethnicity, as are my children, at the moment we have a donation drive to aid the heartbreaking measles epidemic in Samoa. 

You may have seen in the news that Samoa, my home country of fewer than 200,000 people has called an official State of Emergency in the wake of a vicious Measles Epidemic. Since the beginning of November, 53 lives have been lost with 48 of these being children under 4 years old. Over 3,500 people are infected and in the last 24 hours alone 198 new cases were presented. Hospitals are at full capacity and supplies and equipment are running out. 

A mass vaccination program has been implemented and help from Australia and New Zealand has come in the form of vaccines, nurses, and doctors to help contain the spread. It's devasting for all the families affected including mine personally, we have decided to do our bit to help.

Despite international aid, there is still a great shortage of supplies. To help with the relief efforts we have collaborated with the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) in Samoa to organise a donation drive.

Should you wish to help, drop off points and supplies needed are on the flyer attached or contact myself as a drop off point in North Melbourne (my number is below). If you prefer to donate cash, a Go Fund Me page has been set up and you can donate via this link; Samoa Measles Donation. Money raised will be used to assist with transporting the supplies to Sydney where Samoa Airways will airfreight directly to Samoa free of charge. The remaining funds will be transferred to the NEOC.

Thank you for your time in reading this message, Also if it is of interest, we were able to share our efforts on ABC Radio this morning, if you click on this link https://www.facebook.com/109927397147415/posts/115481013258720/

Primary Schools Waterpolo 🤽🏾‍♀️ Tournament

By Raphael Fink-Jensen, Year 5E, NMPS

On the 13th of November, 8 students from NMPS played in the 2019 Primary school Waterpolo tournament. We also had 8 players from surrounding schools to give us a full team

If you don’t know what Waterpolo is, I’ll explain. Waterpolo is a water sport combined with a ball sport. (No, it does not involve horses.) In Waterpolo, the aim of the game is to score as many points as possible through the goals, while also working simultaneously with your teammates, so it is a little similar to soccer but in the water and passing the ball with your hands.

In this tournament, our team played four matches, against a variety of schools. In our first game, we played Canterbury Primary School. They were a worthy opponent but we pulled through victorious, winning 7-5. Our second game was against Trinity Primary school. This team was not the toughest, as we won 9-0 but nonetheless they were strong competitors. Our third match was a battle against Geelong Primary School. This was really hard, but we managed to slip in an extra goal, finishing 6-5 winners! This meant we made the final and played off for 1st vs 2nd. The final match was the hardest. Again, we played Geelong Primary School. We didn't play quite as well as the previous game, and we ended beaten 10-1.

This Waterpolo tournament was an amazing experience and I would recommend this sport to anybody who is interested. Although we didn't win, we came away with the silver medal and we tried our best. Most importantly, we had a good time! Tournaments like this are a gathering of interested schools and a chance to greet other students across the state. This year was a terrific paradox and I cannot wait to see what next year brings to the NMPS Waterpolo players. 

NMPS Players:

• Aidan Truong
• Cooper Cusack
• Raphael Fink-Jensen
• Henry Coulson-Wiegard
• Luke Hermans
• Airel Eynon
• Marco Palmieri
• Ned Kendall