Pacific Partnership 2026 holds ribbon cutting ceremony for construction project in Fiji

SAVUSAVU, Fiji - Leadership from Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific (COMLOG WESTPAC) and Sailors assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 1, along with the community of Nabua village, celebrated the opening of an additional schoolhouse building at the 1237 Nabua Primary School with a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 27, 2026.

The new Nabua Primary School building offers an additional Kindergarten class to local children ages five to six. Built to modern structural standards and utilizing green technology, the new building features solar-powered fixtures which will allow teachers to safely and comfortably bring more education to their community, rain or shine.

“This two-room schoolhouse completes the K through 12 education system for Nabua Village and two surrounding villages,” said Rear Adm. Aaron Taylor, Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific/Task Force 73, during the opening ceremony. “It ensures local school children no longer have to travel far from home to complete their education. This is not just a building of concrete and timber. It is a gateway of opportunity, a place where future leaders, doctors, teachers and public servants of Fiji will find their start.”

According to Samisoni Dulaki, the Nabua Primary School manager, the events of the ribbon cutting were carried out in a way to honor Fijian tradition and celebrate the U.S. Navy personnel involved in making the dream of the new schoolhouse building a reality. Traditional elements, like the gifting of a whale’s tooth to Rear Adm. Taylor and the performance of the Meke dance, normally carried out for a high chief, were performed as a gesture of gratitude.

“That is the highest Fijian tradition. It's done [for] our guest,” said Dulaki, referring to Taylor. ”He’s our high chief today. Everything we always do [for] our big chief, we did it today for him…. We respect him [at] that higher level.”

The celebration was the conclusion of months of arduous labor and years of careful planning.

“In 2023, myself, our school manager [at the time], and one head teacher… We talked about this , and we asked the head teacher to write to the embassy asking for help,” said Dulaki. “After one month, one lady from the embassy came here to the school and said to us that they accepted our letter.”

In April of this year, the U.S. Navy sent in the construction professionals of NMCB-1. They worked over the course of three months, putting in extra hours and sometimes working in inclement weather, to ensure that the project remained on schedule and could support the educational needs of the staff of Nabua Primary School and the local children. Local Fijians worked side-by-side with the U.S. Navy Seabees in building the new school additions.

“The Fijian culture is based on supporting and helping one another,” said Lt. j.g. Arizona Lenski, NMCB-1 officer in charge. “So even on our first days at the job site, the community wanted to help us in the execution of the project. The school principal came and tapped my shoulder and was like, ‘you see these people sitting on the side watching you build. They want to help. So just let them know what they can do to help.’ They take that role and that amount of support into everything that they do…. It's a really beautiful thing because it's such an uplifting community to be a part of.”

At the helm of NMCB-1, Lenski had a crucial role in maintaining the project budget, gathering materials to keep up production on the jobsite, and managing unit personnel. This involved coordinating with local suppliers and retailers to see who could provide rentals and materials, or searching for the best local equivalents to work with. She also had to ensure the overall well being of everyone in her unit by securing proper lodging, establishing transport within and off the island, as well as maintaining a safe and professional worksite. This posed many unique challenges.

“Fiji is split between roughly 300 plus islands, but the main islands are Viti Levu, which we call the main island, and then Vanua Levu, which is the island that we're on, which we call the North Island,” said Lenski. “A lot of materials have to come from Viti Levu all the way to Venua Levu so travel times take longer and about half of our suppliers are on Viti Levu. When there were delays or the ferries were shut down, we had a lot more things that impacted our logistics that were risk factors for our projects. So it took a while to adjust to figuring out what all of the factors were to account for, and then adjusting the dates for deliveries for everyone.”

Off the island, the COMLOG WESTPAC staff in Singapore supported Lenski by coordinating efforts within the broader Pacific Partnership 2026 framework to ensure she could accomplish project goals.

“All of us worked together to ensure contracts were going through, modifications were going through and budgets were being met,” said Lenski. “All of that is what COMLOG WESTPAC helped to reinforce and ensure we were going to be able to meet all of our deadlines. Without them, we just wouldn't have been able to make this mission feasible.”

Despite all the support going into the project, there remained challenges throughout. The remote location often meant material deliveries were delayed, sometimes for weeks. Rain on the mountainside sometimes made roads impassable. Ferries with important supplies from the capital of Suva were unreliable. Heavy construction equipment could not be brought up through the rugged terrain.

“It was extremely impressive to see the robustness of our team,” said Lenski. “Every time we had a block that was the wrong size, or our mixers were the wrong size, or some material that came wasn't correct, we had our subject matter experts on the site who were ready to find ways to adjust and mitigate the errors and corrections.”

Lenski gave an example of the crew's teamwork during the laying of the “footer,” an initial element of construction and the lowest, wider part of a building's foundation which rests directly on the earth.

“The one day we poured the footer was absolutely the proudest day,” Lenski continued. “It was the hardest day from my perspective. There were so many hands involved and there were so many things that made the concrete placement harder than it ever needed to be, but we were able to push through. It was a long day, but it was a fantastic day because we had been fighting, getting out of the ground for so long. Once we put that footer in, there were no further issues on the construction building front.”

Despite various setbacks and challenges, the Fijians of Nabua and Americans of the U.S. Navy worked together to ensure the project was completed on-schedule and within budget.

“I joined the Seabees in order to build infrastructure in places that really needed it,” said Lenski. “So this project absolutely captures everything I've ever wanted to do as a Civil Engineer Corps officer. Being able to see the light on the principal's face, the school manager's face, the whole community just gathering together, seeing people that have been stoic the whole time come up in tears with joy, it's been super meaningful.”

Now in its 22nd iteration, the Pacific Partnership series is the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster management preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific. Pacific Partnership works collaboratively with host and partner nations to enhance regional interoperability and disaster response capabilities, increase security and stability in the region, and foster new and enduring friendships in the Indo-Pacific.

For updates and multimedia from Pacific Partnership 2026, follow #PacificPartnership, #PP26, and #PacificPartnership26 on social media or visit: https://www.dvidshub.net/feature/PacificPartnership

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