The Vaka Taumako Project’s Solomon Islands wing is now up and running. We are now officially registered as a charitable organization in the Solomon Islands as the Vaka Taumako Project of Solomon Islands (VTPSI), also known locally as “Valo Group.”
Dr. Simon Salopuka – Executive Director of VTP Solomon Islands
The direct contact for VTPSI is Dr. Simon “Doc” Salopuka, who can be reached here.
Doc Simon will be participating in the Talanoa for Sustainable Sea Transport in Suva, and will be in Fiji July 12 – 22. As Executive Director of the VTPSI Doc will work with Mimi George in making presentations about what ancient voyaging knowledge has to offer to a world that urgently needs to consider more sustainable technologies. Dixon Wia, videography trainee will attend the Talanoa to help with presentations and to work on finalizing translations and scripting for the video short that the Vaka Taumako Project hopes to complete editing in coming months.
Dixon Wia – VTPSI Videographer
We also expect that Ambrose Miki will get his passport and airfares in time to be a third Taumako representative to the Talanoa. Miki is a foreman under his father, Chief Jonas Hollani, in the buiding of a new full size TePuke at Taumako. Miki is preparing himself to eventually be a professor in the Lata Navigation School at Taumako. The VTP boards plan to write funding proposals for funding to buy the materials and rations needed for construction of a Halau Vaka (Canoe House) at Taumako, where the future Lata Navigation School will be based.
Ambrose Miki – VTPSI Construction Foreman and Sailor