A high tide, calm waters and a light wind made for a beautiful scene as the “Rose of Lima” slipped into waters of the Pacific for the first time.

A team of master carvers and the young men they are mentoring crafted the canoe, a traditional hand-carved dugout outrigger. The work was organized by Waa’gey, a community-based organization that utilizes traditional skills to confront the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by the people of Micronesia’s most remote Outer Islands. This is Waa’gey’s second large sailing canoe in the last twelve months, and only the second Outer Island style canoe ever carved on Yap Proper.

Among those at the shore for the launch were members of the Habele 2012 Listening Tour. Habele Directors Regina Raigetal and Neil Mellen explained that their organization had provided financial and material support for Waa’gey. They relayed how parents of participating students reported a positive impact on classroom achievement and the students’ self worth.


Raigetal further noted that Waa’gey had been partnering with both independent and public schools on Yap to provide instruction on cultural skills and traditional technologies to a larger pool of children through hands-on tours and lectures.


Also on the Listening Tour, and observing the canoe launch, was Nils Winkler, CEO of Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Yapital helped to provide fuel and tools for the carvers, as part of its ongoing partnership with Habele to support K-12 students across Yap State.

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Photo: James Hapdei holds a model canoe in Yap, Micronesia. The model was a gift from his father to Francis Wilson, Chief Pharmacist’s Mate, who helped treat a Yaws epidemic during World War Two.

A two-foot long model canoe has returned to Yap, Micronesia, where it will be restored and preserved by a local group of carvers. Included in the group is the son of the man who first made the model for a special US Sailor seven decades ago.

The canoe has traveled thousands of miles on its journey home. It was carved as a gift for a US Navy sailor who served in the Pacific during World War Two. Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Francis Wilson was one of a pair of sailors who helped to battle an outbreak of yaws, a crippling tropical infection, on the Atoll of Ulithi during the war. The other was physician and author Dr. Marshal Paul Wees.

According to 1950 article in the "Saturday Review," “Dr. Wees was sent by the U. S. Navy to cope with a terrible scourge of yaws with which the people of Ulithi were afflicted... With a minimum of medical supplies and no assistance but the aid of a pharmacists' mate, Dr. Wees accomplished his mission and eliminated yaws.”



Photo: Master and apprentice carvers from Waa’gey examine the donated canoe model and prepare plans for its restoration and display.

The islanders gave Pharmacists Mate Wilson the canoe along with other gifts of thanks and friendship when the two Navy men left Ulithi. The model is over two feet long and nearly a foot wide from the edge of its outrigger to the hull line. Wilson’s son located the canoe among his deceased father’s effects earlier this year and coordinated the donation through “Habele,” a US-based nonprofit organization that supports students across Micronesia.

Habele reached out to long-time partner “Waa’gey,” a local partner group in Yap that preserves and revives traditional island skills such as carving and weaving. Waa’gey has been crafting full size traditional canoes by pairing older master carvers with high school aged students. Among their volunteers is James Hapdei, the son of the man who first carved the canoe model for Wilson during the war. The group offered to make repairs to the slightly deteriorated model and display the canoe for islanders and tourists to enjoy.

The model is a faithful and detailed representation of the Caroline Island dugout sailing canoes that are emblematic of Yap and appear on the Yap State flag. It is believed to be the oldest Outer Island style canoe model in all of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

“Waa’gey is receiving a valuable artifact from an interesting period in Ulithi’s past, when model outrigger canoes were not just souvenirs for tourists but taught young people how to make real canoes.” explains Anthropologist, Barbara Wavell, an expert on Caroline Island carvings and author of “The Arts and Crafts of Micronesia.” “Model canoes were also used in traditional rituals or as toys for young boys.”

The medical work of Francis Wilson and Dr. Marshall Paul Wees were chronicled in the 1950 book “King Doctor of Ulithi.” The text makes specific mention of the model. The canoe model is also nearly identical to one depicted in “The Ulithi Encyclopedia,” a text authored by US Navy Lt. John Loudon Vollbrecht and other sailors in 1945.

“Holding this canoe feels like one has reached through time and touched the past,” explained Larry Raigetal the founder and director of Waa’gey. “As modern day canoe builders, it gives us an incredible sense of motivation and participation in our past. We are so grateful to Luke Wilson and Habele for this donation, and this trust”


Photo: Canoe depicted in the "Encyclopedia of Ulithi," a booklet of history and cultural information compiled by US Navy sailors while stationed in Ulithi Atoll, Yap State (present day Federated States of Micronesia).


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Late in October, participants in the Habele Listening Tour waded ashore on the Island of Asor.

They brought with them a box of English student dictionaries; part of a larger, statewide donation providing each and every middle school student in Yap State with a personal dictionary for use at home and school.

Delivery of this box to the community of Asor, Ulithi marked the final step in a far-reaching effort. The initiative began in June with collaboration between Habele and the Dictionary Project, who provided the texts. Cases of dictionaries began to arrive on Yap Proper in early August where officials from the Yap State Department of Education worked with the Post Office, FSM Customs and Tax Administration, and the State Transportation Department to process the shipment and direct the boxes toward their final destinations.

Nearly half of the books were sent to students attending schools in the remote Outer Islands of Yap State. The majority of these reached their destination in September aboard the Yap State transport vessel, the MV Hapilmohol, whose captain and crew worked with Lorenzo Sartilug. Sartilug serves as neighboring island coordinator for the Department of Education. On Yap Proper, the Education Department Director Vincent Parren and his staff simultaneous distributed boxes to schools throughout Colonia and Yap’s ten municipalities.


The final boxes, slated for the islands of Ulithi (the closest Outer Island to Yap Proper) reached Falalop, Ulithi in November, aboard a Pacific Missionary Airline (PMA) flight. These parcels were received by Lazarus Ulith, who arranged transportation for the books and members of Habele’s Listening Tour within the Atoll. On each of the Atoll’s four islands, Habele Directors held meetings with educators and parents to solicit feedback and answer questions about Habele’s tuition scholarships, library donations and extracurricular programs.

Also in the meetings was Nils Winkler, CEO of Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Yapital sponsored the Statewide Dictionary Project, delivering the 1,000 dictionaries to middle school students, as part of its ongoing partnership with Habele to support K-12 students across Yap State. Following the discussions, the boxes of dictionaries were presented to each island’s school principal.

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Many of the people of Yap in the Federated states of Micronesia are leaving the outer islands for the more urbanised big islands at the centre of the group and in the process they can lose parts of their traditional culture

Waa'Gey incorporated is an organisation dedicated to ensure the skills involved in traditional canoe carving and weaving are passed on to future generations.

It's helped in its work by the small American based charity Habele that provides materials and some funds for its extracurricular activities for school students.

Regina Raigetal, is a Habele Director and the C-E-O of Waa'Gey and explained its work to Steve Rice.

Presenter: Steve Rice

Speaker: Regina Raigetal, the C-E-O of Waa'Gey in Yap

RAIGETAL: Ah it's currently focused on a particular weaving that we want to preserve it, and it went slowly for the past year, very few people remember all the intricate patterns that go onto this, and so we're trying to revive it and sustain it by teaching it to the younger generation, and the same idea was canoe carving.

RICE: I believe the weaving on Yap involves looms?

RAIGETAL: Well the looms are handmade and it's all manual, nothing electronic to it. The whole loom itself is made of wood and every little work done on it is done by the person who has structured the loom.

RICE: What sort of yarns do you use in the weaving?

RAIGETAL: We use banana and hibiscus fibres. For the younger girls we use cotton thread or polyester thread, because it's less brittle and we can teach it to them when they get to know that and adjust do it, then we provide them with the banana and hibiscus fibres.

RICE: How do you do that?

RAIGETAL: Well the banana, we peel the whole trunk of banana, because the banana tree the trunk is layered, and deeper within the banana tree trunk is whiter fibre, that's the ones that we use, and then for the intricate patterns that we add on and form the pattern into the actual loom or the lavalava we use the hibiscus fibre, which is soaked in water and then dried in the shade and then dyed.

RICE: What do you use to make the dyes?

RAIGETAL: Well we have natural dyes, but most recently we've been using imported dyes.

RICE: What were the natural dyes made of?

RAIGETAL: Well plants, roots and then we even used the husk of the coconut, we mash it and we squeeze the juice from it.

RICE: How old is the weaving culture?

RAIGETAL: I think the weaving actually involved in the Polynesian Islands, because there are studies of some anthropologists who've found that they have similar patterns drawn onto tapa cloths in the South Pacific.

RICE: And how many women are left that know all the skills of the weaving and how to do it?

RAIGETAL: I think less than 20, and so that is why we're working hard to preserve it and teach it to the younger generations.

RICE: And how many people of the younger generations are now interested in this art form?

RAIGETAL: A lot are interested and they are even some who are currently taking college courses, and so after their classes they come home and they join the group. And each student has their own loom. We currently have about ten students and two teachers.

RICE: Ok and what are the finished products used for?

RAIGETAL: The traditional uses are many, but this particular weaving or this pattern that we're focussed on, it used to be and still is a Chiefly, so we would call it the royal fabric and we weave it for funerals, they were used as mats and shrouds.

RICE: How many traditional patterns are there?

RAIGETAL: There are many patterns for wearing.

RICE: And that's for everyday life is it?

RAIGETAL: Yes every day. We sleep in them, we don't wear pyjamas or a nightdress, we wear the lavalava day or night, whatever in the water or on land, it's part of the culture.

RICE: And tell us about the canoe building?

RAIGETAL: Here the society has very defined gender roles and the women have their work, which is to garden and weave, and the men have their's, which is to fish, and so that's where the canoe comes in, because not everybody in the smaller islands have a motorboat, and so they still fish today using canoes. We're trying to teach it also to the younger generation so that they appreciate the art, and then also we have paddlers to come and paddle the ones that are already done carving, just to get a feel of it and know that it's usable and it's right there and it's theirs.

RICE: I believe that recently a new canoe was launched that had been carved out of a piece of Philippine mahogany?

RAIGETAL: Yes, yes, and they used that for the canoe festival. It won several races, and right now there's another log that is being carved.

RICE: So your organisation is dedicated to keeping alive the traditional handcrafts?

RAIGETAL: And the purpose for that is of course the migration of the neighbouring islanders to the main island or to the centre, and currently they choose to migrate here but soon with climate change and the sea level rising the way it is going, there'll be forced migration. And so they're coming in here and having their own settlements, they're losing their culture because they're meshing it with a more modern one here in the centre, and so I hope to pass these traditional activities so that other kids from the outer islands continue to learn it.

[This is a transcript of an interview conducted November 30th, aired on Radio Australia. The audio file can be found here].


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Habele continues to receive letters from students and parents as well as school and community leaders following the donation of dictionaries to students throughout Yap State.

The most recent note came from the island of Wottegai on the Atoll of Wooleai.

The community school principal and the traditional island chief explain:

 

"...So many thanks to whomever brought about this pleasant idea; whomever agreed to this idea; and whomever supported, supporting, and will continue to support this idea... At this tiny elementary level school, grades 1-8, we received a good amount of students dictionaries which they are very helpful to the students. Each student has his/her own dictionary. The students, their parents, the teachers, community leaders, as well as the whole community of Wottegai were very happy with the donations!"

The statewide donation of student dictionaries was orchestrated by Habele, a small US-based based charity that has been serving students in Micronesia since 2006.

The texts were donated by The Dictionary Project and funding for delivery was provided by Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Hard working educators at the Yap State Department of Education and seamen at the Yap State Government Sea Transportation ensured the donated texts reached each and every middle school across Yap and all its outer islands.

Habele also awards K-12 tuition scholarships, supports traditional arts and crafts, and develops after school programs that serve students in Yap State and across Micronesia.

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High tech met traditional tech when a group of US Navy Seabees pitched in to help the Waa’gey traditional canoe project in Yap, Micronesia.

The sailors, stationed on Yap as part of a construction civic action detail, used their powerful lifting equipment and wide-bodied truck to ferry a massive log to the traditional boat house where it will take shape as a sailing canoe.

Over the course of several weeks, Master Carvers and youth volunteers with the Waa’gey program had fallen, and carved out, a log in the jungles of Yap. It will serve as the hull for a traditional Carolinian sailing canoe. The dugout log -still weighing hundreds of pounds and measuring more than twenty feet long- was pulled up a trail from the depths of the jungle to a dirt road by a team of twenty boys using a rope. The next leg of the trip, the fifteen-mile road into Colonia where the Waa’gey’s boathouse sits at the edge of the lagoon, seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

“Thankfully, the US Navy was ready to help!” explained Larry Raigetal of Waa’gey. “They accomplished in a few minutes a lifting feat that would have taken us months,” Raigetal continued. “It was a great chance for us to share information and compare notes on our respective building techniques and technologies.”

The US sailors raised the hull onto a truck, drove it into Colonia, and delivered it to the boathouse. Young men and women presented the sailors with floral wreaths and gifts of local foods to convey their gratitude.

Waa’gey is a community-based organization. It aims to uses traditional skills to confront the social, economic and environmental challenges faced by the people of Micronesia’s most remote outer islands.
Waa’gey receives financial and material support from Habele, a US-based charity, which was holding a “listening tour” meeting at the boathouse when the log arrived on the Navy’s truck. Also present for the delivery was Nils Winkler, CEO of Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Yapital had donated chainsaws, adze blades and fuel for the Canoe Project through its ongoing partnership with Habele.

The US Navy Seabee civic action team is working on Yap to fabricate schools and hospitals, continuing a decades long tradition of American Government’s investment in core infrastructure for the people of Micronesia.
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An ABC Radio Australia program that covers news and events in the Pacific  broadcast an interview with Neil Mellen, President of the Habele Board of Directors.

Presenter Steve Rice explained how the small US based charity called Habele, which operates in Micronesia, has been officially praised by Yap State Legislators for its work there.

"The Speaker and Governor both communicated their belief that targeting support for students in intermediate and high school grades remains the best use of the charity's limited resources.

"The Council of Tamol and other traditional leaders encouraged Habele to expand its mission to serve all economically disadvantaged students, rather than only those from outer and distant lagoon islands.

"Habele's directors and supporters have just completed their 2012 listening tour in Yap State, to assess how the projects are working and how they can be improved."

The full audio clip of the interview is posted online here.

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Eighty students from the College of Micronesia-FSM and Yap High School visited the Waa'gey canoe carving project at the Living Museum canoe houses yesterday, Thursday, November 8th. Volunteer and coordinator of the project, Larry Raigetal gave a brief description of the project and basic instructions, including simple measurements on canoe carving. Principal Domingo Techur of Yap High School said he is "very happy the students had this opportunity to visit the project as Yapese culture and traditional skills such as canoe carving are just as important to learn."

Yap High School teacher Ms. Stephanie who coordinated the field trip for the High School students said the trip was "a success and a students learn a great deal of stuff."



Waa'gey is a locally chartered community based organization which actively works at the grassroots and community level to promotes use of traditional knowledge and skills. Some of its current projects aside from canoe carving include learning the skills of traditional weaving of royal fabrics for the girls and fish trap making for the boys.


Funding for this canoe project is made available from the Australian Government through its Small Grant Scheme. Waa'gey also receives support from Habele Outer Island Education Fund, a US-based charity.


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Habele Directors and supporters just completed the 2012 “Listening Tour” in Yap State, Micronesia. Meetings were held with state government officials, traditional chiefs, public and private school educators, as well as parents and community members in the villages.

Also attending the meetings was Nils Winkler, CEO of Yapital, a European-based electronic payments company. Yapital sponsored the Statewide Dictionary Project, delivering 1,000 dictionaries to middle school students, as part of its ongoing partnership with Habele to support K-12 students across Yap State.

Here are some of the trip highlights:

Yap State Legislators passed a resolution officially praising Habele’s six years of service to the students of Yap. The Speaker and Governor both believe that targeting support for students in intermediate and high school grades remains the best use of Habele’s limited resources.

The Council of Tamol and other traditional leaders encouraged Habele to expand its mission to serve all economically disadvantaged students, rather than only those from outer and distant lagoon islands.

Principals and teachers told Habele that after school programs such as Waa’gey (traditional canoe carving and weaving) and the Vex Robotics clubs have been genuine “game changers” for participating students. They asked for support to expand these extracurricular efforts.

The Women’s’ associations and the Waa’gey traditional skills programs thanked Habele for our donations of materials and funds. They both asked for Habele’s support in raising awareness of their work outside of Micronesia.


Public and private school educators asked Habele to repeat the statewide “Dictionary For Every Eighth Grader” donation on a yearly basis.

The feedback was constructive; the encouragement thrilling. Parents and educators communicated a genuine sense of gratitude. They want Habele to grow and gave us specific, actionable program ideas.

We encountered anxiety across Yap State about the drawdown in US Government aid and the prospect of a new multi-resort tourism and golf complex. This concern has spurred unprecedented public dialogue. The terms “sustainable development” and “effective foreign investment” were oft repeated. Directors noted a new interest in non-government organizations and hope about the role such groups could play in social and economic development.


The challenges faced by Yap (and all of Micronesia) represent an opportunity for Habele. Our targeted programs for students are academically effective and economically efficient. Habele’s slow-and-steady, grassroots, brick-by-brick growth strategy is being validated by praise and encouragement among official leaders and –more importantly– “back in the villages.” As the only US-based nonprofit solely serving students in Micronesia, Habele’s position remains unique and our ability to affect positive change enormous.


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Lorenzo Sartilug of the Yap State Department of Education reports:

"The donated dictionaries are ready to go on the ship. The ones for Ulithi Schools will be sent on the plane."

That government field trip ship will be sending the dictionaries to middle school students throughout the "outer" or "neighboring" islands of Yap State.

The outer islands -mostly lowing atolls actually- are collectively home to half of Yap State's population. They span hundreds of miles of open ocean between Yap Proper and Chuuk Lagoon. Habele also provides K-12 tuition scholarships to support ambitious students from these remote Pacific islands, in order to help equalize educational opportunity.

Learn more about Habele's tuition scholarships, public school donations and innovative after school programs at Habele.org


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