Caring Report 2025—Australia, the Philippines, and the Pacific
In 2025, the Church focused on meeting essential needs and promoting long-term health across the Pacific through improved access to clean water, education, and child nutrition resources.
2025 Area Priorities
Clean Water
In Samoa, the Church worked with the Samoan Ministry of Health and the Vaisigano Second District to install two 10,000-liter water tanks for a school and distribute over 200 water tanks to local households—benefiting nearly 2,000 residents.
In Kiribati, a three-year collaborative effort between the Church and the country’s government reached an important milestone with the installation of 10 solar-powered desalination plants across five islands, bringing clean drinking water to drought-affected villages.
Education
In 2025, the Church funded the repair, refurbishment, and creation of several classrooms throughout the Pacific to improve educational opportunities for children. These efforts included the following projects:
- Papua New Guinea: In an interfaith effort, local community members volunteered to construct a new school building with four classrooms.
- Tonga: The construction of two additional classrooms reduced class sizes and improved learning conditions for more than 100 students.
- Vanuatu: The completion of two new school buildings allowed students to leave the temporary tents they had used for schoolwork after two cyclones damaged their facilities in 2023.
Child Nutrition
In connection with its child nutrition efforts, the Church organized child nutrition screenings in Vanuatu, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and other locations throughout the Pacific. To support a screening event in Vanuatu, children from Australia donated toothbrushes and toothpaste.
A Gift of Light
In communities where electricity is not widely available, children and youth often struggle to complete homework after dark. To address this challenge, the Church collaborated with Australia-based nonprofit SolarBuddy to provide 500 solar-powered light kits to students in Gavuone, Papua New Guinea. Church members in Port Moresby gathered to assemble the kits, which are designed to charge during the day and light homes at night.
“Providing these kinds of lights to [students] will help them do a better job with their homework and will improve their studies, especially in the home,” says Dahra, the local school headmaster.