MORE than 20 students boarding at Navala Catholic School now have proper sleeping facilities after the opening of their new dormitory at Navala Village in Ba yesterday.
Built by the Fiji Water Foundation's charitable trust, the new dormitory will play a critical role in improving the education of Navala children.
Fiji Water's chief executive officer Rokoseru Nabalarua said the dormitory was a good example of one of the foundation's three main goals of improving access to and quality of education.
"If the students have a good dormitory, they will have good access to better and quality education," Mr Nabalarua said.
He said the school appealed to the foundation for a better dormitory in 2010.
"After assessing the old dormitory, we found that it was not good for the children and was not accessible daily. This was a denial of access to a basic human right," he said.
A former pupil of the school, Mr Nabalarua said the completed dorm should be used to upgrade the education of children in the village and children had to play an active role in furthering their education.
"Students should make use of the opportunity to upgrade their education for their future careers," he said.
He urged parents to take special interest in their children's education, saying this should be one of their priorities.
"Once you invest in your children's education, you will reap the fruits in the future," Mr Nabalarua said.
He explained this was the motivation for the foundation's assisting village schools to have more access to quality education.
School chairman Ratu Semi Nakautoka said the request was long overdue and thanked Fiji Water for the assistance.
"We have been waiting for this dorm for a very long time as the other dorms were not being used because of Occupational, Health and Safety issues," he said.