Seeing a team care for remote villages in the Solomon Islands showed me how small donations can make a real big difference.
When a new boat arrives in a remote Solomon Islands village, it’s an event. Children playing in the water stop mid-splash and point towards the boat, screaming “sei, sei”—“wow” in local Pijin. For me, this was an event too. I was fortunate to get to tag along with Sonship for a week, a not-for-profit delivering free medical care and health education to the islands’ hardest-to-reach communities.
“We are here,” the captain said to me, as he dropped anchor. “Niu Mala village.” Meanwhile, the nurses and deckhands began heaving tubs of medical supplies into the waiting tinnie. The shore, lined with sky-scraping coconut palms, quickly became dotted with more people eager to welcome us and lend a hand.
When the tinnie reached the shore, a young man shook our hands and motioned for us to follow him to his village. Moments later, we reached a small, thatched hut, the village’s communal meeting space. The Sonship team unfolded some plastic tables and spread out their supplies as barefoot villagers started streaming in—from mothers carrying multiple children on their hips to elders hobbling on sticks. Each set a small, well-worn booklet onto a pile in front of the nurse, its pages filled with scribbles from previous doctors’ and nurses’ notes.
Without wasting any time, the nurse picked up the first booklet and called the name on the cover. A girl in a dusty pink dress, no older than eight, got up off the ground and slumped into the plastic chair, her forehead visibly damp. The nurse read through her history, asked a few questions, then pricked her fingertip and pressed a drop of blood onto a malaria test strip. Positive. The first of many we saw that day.
Malaria remains one of the most common and dangerous illnesses in the Solomons, with effects ranging from mild fevers to life-threatening illness. Many patients arrived with chills, headaches, fatigue, aching muscles and nausea. The more severe cases were marked by a sickly yellow tinge to the skin, fatigue from parasite-induced anaemia, and voices so weak you could tell they were struggling to manage even the simplest of daily tasks.
Other villagers came seeking help for tropical ulcers, often caused by poor living conditions, limited health knowledge, and bacteria in the warm seawater that could turn a small cut into a crater of raw, pink flesh. Some arrived in makeshift wheelchairs after lower-leg amputations—not from dramatic accidents, but from the slow toll of uncontrolled diabetes. Many had diarrhoea that left them dehydrated and delirious. And others came with swollen feet, an ominous sign of heart failure.
Help out of reach
Providing medical care in the Solomons is no simple task. The archipelago, made up of nearly a thousand islands, stretches across more than 5300 kilometres of coastline and is divided by densely forested mountain ranges. Heavy tropical rains, storms and cyclones batter the islands frequently. Around 82 per cent of the population live in rural areas, where most families rely on farming and fishing for survival. Jobs are scarce, schools and clinics are limited, and access to healthcare can mean hours—or even days—of travel by wooden canoe or an old boat.
Wrestling with the world’s needs
Something inside me sank as I watched the villagers crowd the hut, waiting anxiously to be seen by the nurses. Over the week, I witnessed injuries and illnesses I’d never even heard of, leaving me see-sawing between gratitude and guilt.
I thought of all the times I’d made a quick trip to the doctor or emergency department with a broken bone, an earache or just low energy and received almost immediate, affordable care and assurance. For many people around the world, that kind of access is a rare privilege.
Alongside this mix of feelings was a quiet push to do something—but figuring out how to help has never been straightforward. The world is complicated and when confronted with scale of suffering, I often feel overwhelmed.
Should I volunteer at a local homeless shelter or donate meals to families in famine-stricken regions across the ocean? Start an organisation to mentor young people or advocate against the sex trafficking of young girls worldwide? Spread my efforts across various causes or focus on a single issue? In trying to weigh up every need and choice, my uncertainty has sometimes left me stalled—so unsure where to begin that I don’t take any meaningful action at all.
But my time in the Solomons offered insight into at least one way I can make a difference—and it’s simpler than I initially thought. While with Sonship, I watched different team members contribute in various ways. As well as seeing patients all day, the nurses educated the villagers each night on health and wellbeing. The captains kept the boats running and navigated us through coral reefs and sand banks. The chaplain prayed with people and gave them hope and comfort. Yet despite all this, there was still something consistently lacking. Something a little more taboo . . .
Cold, hard cash
Cash donations have allowed Sonship to help thousands of people over the past 20 years, yet budget constraints still limit their reach. At times it means they don’t have enough malaria test kits or medication to treat everyone in the village, or funds to pay more nurses, despite the high demand for care. While they’d like to send all six of their boats out each month, sometimes a few must stay docked. As Trevor Oliver, Sonship’s founder, explained, “The cost of fuel is one of our biggest expenses and running the boats is particularly expensive because we go to far and distant islands.”
Often people default to donating goods to charities—clothes, food or supplies—but unrequested items can sometimes create more problems than they solve. They might not meet any actual needs and can be costly to transport and store.
As expenses rise globally, many of us are tightening our budgets. Understandably, charitable giving is one of the first things to get the cut. In 2024, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 80 per cent of Australians had reduced their donations.
While it’s important to be wise with our money, even small contributions can have an outsized impact for those far worse off than us. Many charities use donations thoughtfully and effectively, making every dollar count.
From what I saw with Sonship, a small donation could preserve the eyesight of a little girl recently abandoned by her parents, or provide antibiotics to a young man with pneumonia before it turned into sepsis. It could fund malaria treatment that restores a mother’s health—and with it, the wellbeing of the four children who rely on her. In places where resources are scarce and needs are high, every contribution is put to thoughtful use.
Nothing wasted
One evening after a long day in the village, the team was scoffing down dinner and getting ready to run a health talk for the village. Suddenly, one of the team members burst in yelling, “There’s been an accident! A man has cut his foot with a machete.”
Earlier that morning, the man had seen the Sonship boats dock in his village on his way to tend to the fields. After cutting his foot, he hobbled for four hours through the jungle in pursuit of the boats.
The team rushed to the jetty where he lay, his foot hanging over the edge so not to stain the planks with the blood still dripping from the wound. One nurse assessed the deep laceration, cleaned it and sutured it to stop the bleeding, while another nurse gave him fluids via a drip to help hydrate him. Once stitched up, he was given spare dressings and instructions for follow-up care, and was prayed over by the team. Before returning him to his family, one of the crew members handed him the IV line and said, “Here, take this . . . you can use it for fishing.” The man laughed and pressed his hands together, “Tankgyku, tankgyku,” he said with a grin.
Small actions ripple
Co-founder Helen Oliver grew up in the Solomons and recalls seeing many people suffer and die from lack of medical care. “I feel so privileged to have medical help in Australia and I want that same access for my family out here,” she said. “It’s really hard work. But when I see the emergencies Sonship responds to, always arriving in the villages at just the right time, I know why God sent us to do this.”
This isn’t a plea to donate specifically to Sonship. But it is a plea to take your privilege seriously. Every day, people face struggles most of us can barely imagine and some have devoted their lives to easing those burdens. Our role doesn’t have to be heroic—it can simply be supportive. So, find a cause that resonates with you, let your contributions amplify the work already underway and see how small acts can make a lasting difference.