Wan Smolbag operates in the areas of education, environment, governance, health and youth. We work across diverse subject areas to create awareness and promote community action, and we provide training and materials to schools, communities, NGOs and government departments in the Pacific and beyond.

Education
We work with schools, rural training centres, community groups and NGOs to promote the use of Smolbag''s own educational materials. We provide training in Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands on how to use our materials in the classroom or as part of a workshop, to promote participatory learning.

Environment
Wan Smolbag’s environment programmes focus on encouraging and supporting community responsibility for the sustainable use of their resources. Over the years, WSB has dealt with issues from logging to reef management, custom medicine to sustainable tourism and sea cucumber farming. Most notable is the work of WSB’s Vanua-tai network. The network was started in 1995 on the island of Efate to look at turtle conservation. This network has grown from a few volunteers on Efate to over 200, based in coastal villages throughout Vanuatu.

Governance
Wan Smolbag aims to initiate discussion, support community action, and advocate on governance and controversial issues. What is the relation between tradition and more recent, western forms of governance? Or is there a universal right and wrong when it comes to human rights that can supersede cultural concerns? Wan Smolbag tackles these issues in many of its plays, films and radio programmes.

Health
Reproductive Health is the main focus for Wan Smolbag’s activities under this programme. As well as tackling the issues through drama, Wan Smolbag runs reproductive health clinics in Port Vila, Luganville and our nurses make monthly visits to North Pentecost to run a clinic from our youth centre there. In its popular TV series Love Patrol, Wan Smolbag explores the growing issue of HIV in the Pacific.

Youth
Wan Smolbag has youth centres in Vanuatu’s two main towns, Port Vila and Luganville, and manages a youth centre on the island of Pentecost. The two urban youth centres were started in answer to a desperate and growing need among unemployed youth, who had finished school for one reason or another and, basically, had nothing to do. All three youth centres offer informal classes, workshops, and activities e.g. hip hop dance, nutrition, playing guitar, sewing, agriculture and futsal.