This week Habele is mailing its inaugural annual report! The document details the Fund's accomplishments in promoting educational opportunity and success in the Outer Islands of Micronesia.

In FY 2006 the Fund received over $4,400 in donations from individual donors across the United States and Micronesia. All our US donors are eligible to claim these gifts as deductions, in accordance with our tax-exempt 501©3 status.

These gifts financed two complete scholarships (tuition and board) for Outer Island students studying in Palau. Habele also mailed five separate shipments of school supplies to Atolls from Ulithi to Eauripik. The Fund received school supplies and basic clothing from a range of individual and group donors, and spent over $200.00 to purchase additional educational materials. International postage fees for all these donations exceeded $130.00. These include the t-shirts donated by Rick Quinn, such as the one worn by a student at Falalop Ulithi Elementary School in the picture above.

The report includes pictures of students enjoying book donations, as well as personal letters of thanks from our scholarship award winners. For full details you can request a copy of the report by visiting www.habele.org and clicking on “email” to contact the fund.

Graphic-intensive website by natives of the Eauripik Atoll living in the United States. www.eauripik.tk. If you have a pop-up blocker you must disable it.

The Daily Kos reposted commentary about the role of Micronesia, and other Oceania nations, in controversial UN votes.There has never been a diary written about this grouping of four countries, so why are they considered 'the usual suspects'? …Well, these countries form the supporting block of countries that the United States can depend on, along with Israel and Australia, to customarily vote as a block of six.

Ulithi-based Peace Corps Volunteer Joe Andrews completed his mid-service technical training, and following a holiday in Indonesia, is returning to Falalop.

The Habele Outer Island Education Fund is sending off its first shipment of school supplies for 2007! Two boxes, packed full of pens, pencils, makers, papers, scissors, note cards, notebooks, and compasses were carefully wrapped Friday afternoon. The boxes will be brought to the Post Office early Monday morning for their 3,000+ mile journey to the remote atoll of Eauripik in the Central Caroline Islands.

The Habele Outer Island Education fund is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of educational opportunities and accomplishment in Micronesia’s remote Outer Islands. Learn more about how you can help at www.habele.org!

U.S. Halts All Funding For FSM's Chuuk State
The United States has halted all financial assistance to Chuuk, one of the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia, after the state government misspent $1 million in foreign aid. The suspension in financial assistance took effect on December 1, 2006…

The Navy Career of Gerald Ford
..After the fire, Monterey was declared unfit for service and the crippled carrier reached Ulithi on 21 December before proceeding across the Pacific to Bremerton, Washington where it underwent repairs. On Christmas Eve 1944 at Ulithi, Ford was detached from the ship and sent to the Athletic Department of the Navy Pre-Flight School, St. Mary's College, California…

Photo of the USS Monterey at Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, 24 Nov 1944

Dive Site Brief on Ulithi
Ulithi Atoll (also know as Urushi, or Mackenzie Island) is a coral atoll in the Federated States of Micronesia, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is 106 miles east of Yap. Its islets have a total land area of 1.75 sq miles. Its huge lagoon is the world's fourth largest (209 sq. miles)...

The Habele Outer Island Education Fund has mailed a small box of school supplies and donated goods to Asor, Ulithi this week. This is the fifth such shipment made to the Outer Islands in 2006 by the Fund. Supplies are being gathered for a mailing to Eauripik early in 2007. To learn how you can help by donating goods - or money to cover the cost of postage - visit habele.org.

Just a quick update: The Fund is working on revisions to our website, which can be found at www.habele.org. Please click on the "email" button to send us your feedback.

We are also compiling one last box for 2006 with both Fund-purchased and donated books as well as classroom supplies for the Asor Community Elementary School (ACES) on the Atoll of Ulithi.

Finally, thanks to Joshua Willter, creator of the outstanding Olekoi Palau website for supporting Habele.

Christmas air-drop of supplies and gifts to Outer Islands. A kick-off ceremony will take place tomorrow on Guam, and will include Petty Officer 2nd Class John Taibermal of Eauripik atoll, part of Yap State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Taibemal grew up receiving holiday gifts dropped from the sky by U.S. Air Force transports based on Guam.” Article from Pacific Magazine.

Major Pacific shipper to raise rates. Matson Navigation yesterday announced it will raise its rates for the company's Hawaii service by $100 per westbound container and $50 per eastbound container starting Jan. 1. Matson estimated that the increase will raise rates by an average of 3.3 percent. The increase will be filed with the Surface Transportation Board, according to a Matson news release. Article from the Pacific Daily News.

Webpage chronicles a Marine Unit’s time on Ulithi. The VMD-354 detachment to Ulithi was responsible for maintaining the aerial surveillance of these Japanese held islands and to seek out any signs of change through Aerial Photographic Reconnaissance. Check out USMarineCorpsVMD-354.com.

Japanese Overseas Volunteer travels to Satawal and Federai, Ulithi. Great photos.

A hard and thoughtful look at economic self-sufficiency in the Pacific. We who believed that a national sense of purpose could overcome any natural adversity have been forced to modify our position after watching the FSM and the RMI struggle to find an industrial base for their economy over the years … Perhaps we all believed a little too ardently in the conventional wisdom of the day: that economic self-reliance was attainable if only island nations would try just a bit harder to maintain equilibrium between exports and imports. We may have been wrong-those island political ideologues of the 1960s, the U.S. government, the banks, and myself. But the mistake can always be corrected. “Is That the Best You Can Do? A Tale of Two Micronesian Economies,” by Francis X. Hezel, SJ. From the Micronesian Seminar.

Habele is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. We are dedicated to the advancement of educational opportunities in the remote islands and atolls of Micronesia, an impoverished former American colony in the Central Pacific. Visit www.habele.org.

Volunteers and board members working on Habele’s annual report released a preliminary glimpse at the Fund’s spending breakdown today, covering the eleven months from January through November 2006.


The percentage breakdown is: scholarships 81%, incorporation 9%, administration 4%, international postage 3%, school supplies 2%, and domestic postage 1%.

In these eleven months, Habele was able to deliver 85 percent of all expenditures directly to the scholars and students of the Outer Islands. The bulk of the support (or administrative) costs were one-time fees associated with the process of incorporation. “With these set-up costs out of the way we look forward to maintaining an even leaner and more efficient organization in 2007” explained Fund Treasurer, Tom Lutte. In fact, excluding these set up costs, Habele was able to send 93 ½ cents to the islands (in scholarships, materials, and postage) for every dollar that was spent by the Fund.

Major outputs for the year included two full scholarships for Ulithian students attending Bethania High School in Palau, as well as four mailings of purchased and donated supplies for Outer Island public schools on Ulithi and Eauripik Atolls.

More details in the forthcoming annual report. Please consider donating today!

About the Fund: Habele is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation run by unpaid volunteers. We are dedicated to the advancement of educational opportunities in the remote islands and atolls of Micronesia, an impoverished former American colony in the Central Pacific. Our primary goal is to provide scholarships and tuition-assistance grants to children living in the “low” or “outer” islands, so they can attend independent schools located in the larger district centers. We also provide support to public schools through book donations, material assistance, and performance-based teacher awards.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - December 7, 2006
The South Carolina Democratic Party today donated t-shirts and tote bags to the Habele Outer Island Education Fund, a non-profit organization that serves students and teachers in Micronesia.

Habele will send the supplies to public schools on the Island of Yap and the remote Atoll of Ulithi, both located in a portion of the Central Pacific Ocean formerly administered by the United States.

“The Federated States of Micronesia is one of the most isolated and underdeveloped nations in the world, and this kind donation is headed to the most impoverished portion of it,” said Neil Mellen, president of the Fund. “We were just glad we could help,” said Shameka Grayson, operations manager for the State Democratic Party.

In addition to channeling donations to the islands, Habele also awards scholarships and grants to students from Micronesia. The fund promotes educational opportunity and accomplishment by working with community leaders, local teachers, clergy, Peace Corps Volunteers, and parents in the islands. Independent school scholarships are awarded to capable and deserving students. The intent is to promote students’ personal development, as well as to expand the range of educational choices in the region.

The Fund, a non-partisan organization, has also received donations and contributions from prominent South Carolinian Republicans. Former state legislator and candidate for Treasurer, Rick Quinn donated several boxes of shirts last summer.

“We’re a-political,” said Mellen, a former Peace Corps volunteer himself. “Our role is to promote opportunities for educational empowerment in a former US territory and that is something we can all support.”

For more information about the Habele Outer Island Education Fund visit www.habele.org

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The Habele Outer Island Education Fund just received an elaborate hand woven lava lava from the students and staff of Eauripik Atoll’s Community School.

Habele is a non-profit organization promoting educational opportunity and accomplishment in the remote Outer Islands of Micronesia’s Yap State. The Habele volunteers and donors began regularly sending boxes of books, paper, pencils and other basic school supplies to the isolated Atoll of Eauripik in 2003.

This lava-lava, a woven skirt unique to the Outer Island, was addressed to the Habele President and reads “This is a token of appreciation to you for keeping us in your heart. We are grateful for all your kindness, generosity, and knowing that our kids is [sic] our future. We all want to thank you personally for the instructional materials that you have provided us in those days. We are confident that you see our needs for we don’t have much to use at our school and we are now making use of those that you have send us. We are deeply sorry for we don’t have much to offer you but we hope this locally made handicraft will be a remembrance of our school to you, and be a token of all your great supports. God bless you and wish you all the best. Sincerely, Students & Staff, Eauripik Community School

Eauripik is a tiny atoll in the Caroline Islands, hundreds of miles from the partially developed district centers of Yap Proper and Chuuk Lagoon. The inhabitants are primarily subsistence fisherman and gardeners. There is neither electricity nor plumbing and no cash economy.

For information about how you can help out the students on Eauripik, as well as those throughout the Outer Islands, visit www.habele.org.