The Marist Brothers founded the Suva Street Primary School in 1888.
The Marist Brothers Primary School (MBPS) is located in the densely populated city of Suva in Fiji. It currently has 665 students enrolled at the school across 16 different classes and is one of the only primary schools in the city centre. Because of this, the government has instructed MBPS that they are required to accept new students, even though the numbers of students in each class exceeds the stipulated maximum of 35.
In recent years the school facilities have come under considerable strain for a variety of reasons. Most notably was category-five Tropical Cyclone Winston, which hit Fiji in February 2016 as the most powerful storm ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, tore several buildings apart, including the St Columba and St Felix buildings at the school.
With the St Felix building beyond repair, the school has made significant efforts to rebuild and refurbish the remaining four buildings including the St Columba block. The cyclone ripped the roof off the St Columba block meaning that the two main sections of corrugated iron roofing and guttering are destroyed. Other areas have become twisted and are no longer watertight.The roof lining on the balconies has been badly damaged and, consequently, the balcony area outside two classrooms has been declared a restricted area because of the danger it poses to students and staff.
MBPS was not the worst affected in the region and so in the weeks after the weather event staff, students and their parents came together to raise funds for other schools who were totally devastated at the time. MBPS has now been able to make their first steps in repairing the St Columba building after a partnership between Catholic Mission Sydney, Kindermissionswerk Germany as well as our AMS appeal, combined to provide funding to replace the entire roof. MBPS’s next steps will be to address the electrical and plumping issues as well as the internal fit out of the building.
AMS is committed to supporting Marist education in Fiji and we will continue to support schools like MBPS as well as others in the region.