A joyous moment for students and teachers of Vula’a Rivilina Elementary School in the Hula village, Rigo District of Central province after receiving their newly built double classroom donated by John Swire & Sons Ltd (Swire) through the Swire Philanthropic Fund. John Swire & Sons Ltd is a privately held company with a long association with PNG through its shipping arm, Swire Shipping, and for the last 50 years as a major shareholder in flag-carrying local conglomerate, Steamships Trading Company Ltd. Finance Director of Steamships, Michael Scantlebury, shared that this project was a collaboration between Steamships staff and concerned members of Hula Village. “Steamships has a long-standing relationship with the Hula Community which formed out of our staff regularly visiting this area for kite boarding. Through this recreational activity, we learned of the plight of this school. This began conversations to explore options for how we could contribute towards the school’s redevelopment. Eventually our proposal was supported by Swire, who asked Steamships to lead the delivery of the project on their behalf.” Months of community engagement and planning were followed by building construction which started in November 2023 and completed on 31 December. In accepting the keys to the new classroom, Kilavigi Ruga the School Board Representative of Vula’a Rivilina Elementary School thanked Steamships and Swire for recognising the need within the community. “For many years, we’ve experienced funding challenges to carry out the repair and maintenance of our school classroom, but out of that difficulty, we’ve received this blessing. The partnership with Swire and Steamships enabled us to implement the changes required since the education restructure and improve our school facilities for the benefit of our children.” The total project value is K250, 000 which covers a rural double classroom with teachers’ office space in between, 30 students’ desks, 2 teachers’ desks, chairs and shelves, blackboards and pin boards and freight, cartage and building contractor costs. Vula’a Rivilina Elementary School is the first beneficiary of the Swire Education Infrastructure Programme (SEIP) fully funded by Swire and implemented by Steamships. The objective of the programme is to provide access to basic education for school communities in PNG through the provision of education infrastructure. This programme aligns to the major outcome areas of the National Education Plan 2021-2029 supporting the government’s agenda to provide adequate school infrastructure to cater for the education structure change and infrastructure providing environments that are conducive to learning.