Tom Murray

In the Solomon Islands there are no women in parliament, few women in business, and most crucially for where I am, in Kia, no female chiefs. This has big implications for development in the Solomons, not only because there is a huge domestic violence problem here, but because women have... Read More

Last night I went and helped out at a meeting for the Kia youth group. It was a real learning experience for me. This group was not like any I’d ever seen before and seemed like a great response to chronic boredom in Kia. Read More

While volunteering can be great when it works, there are big challenges to be faced even before a volunteer gets started. For me, these challenges are still haunting me even after having been in the country for six months – I’m still waiting for a meeting with the village chiefs... Read More

Yesterday I arrived in the village of Kuksin on the island of Wagina. The Wagina community is one of three partner communities in the Arnavons Community Marine Conservation Area (ACMCA) who I’ve been working for. Read More

One of the perks of being a volunteer is that I probably have one of the coolest offices in the world. Read More

Solomon Time was one very important idea for me to understand when I first arrived here in the Solomon Islands. It basically refers to the fact that over here, people aren’t usually “on-time” and almost everything takes twice as long as expected. Read More

The youth conference has turned out to be a youth health conference, a four day shindig with people coming from all around Kia and the surrounding islands. Some people travelled for three days by boat to get here and spent four thousand Solomon dollars on fuel for the journey. Read More

So how on Earth did I end up out here? I had to ask myself this when I rocked up to Kia, a small village with no roads, no running water supply and no electricity. I also asked myself where the toilets were, that was until I realised that those... Read More

Hey! My name’s Tom, I come from the small town of Alexandra in the hills of Central Otago, and in February this year I flew out of Auckland Airport bound for the Solomon Islands. Read More