Dr Naren Prasad did not return to Dreketi Central College in Macuata to talk about his success.
He returned to literally walk eight kilometres of his childhood days, but about 50 years later.
Before dawn on Wednesday, the Head of Education and Training at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva left his mother’s home in Vunicagi and retraced the same route he had taken almost every school day as a child.
Nearly five decades had passed since those innocent strides.
The gravelly road had long been sealed. The old bridge was gone. The steep hills no longer looked menacing. Some of the people who shaped his childhood, including his father, were no longer around.
But the lingering lessons, he told students gathered at Dreketi Central College this week, had never changed.
“I wasn’t walking because I had to. I was walking because I needed to remember who I am,” he said.
For the former student, coming home was not simply a routine holiday. It was a reminder that the road from a small farming settlement in Macuata could lead all the way to one of the world’s leading international organisations.
Standing before students who now occupy the same classrooms he once did, Dr Prasad challenged them not to judge their future by the focusing too much on the humble beginnings they started from but the level of greatness they reach.
“Never let where you come from determine where you can go.”
“Your dreams are bigger than your address. Your future is bigger than your circumstances.”
In telling his story, he shared an analogy of three classrooms that moulded him to become the person he is today. None of the classrooms had walls but they taught him values.
The first classroom was the family farm.
The family farm
Growing up in Vunicagi, work came before school. The family planted rice, tended cocoa, raised chickens to help buy school stuff, clothes and produced coconut oil that they sold in nearby communities.
Looking back, Dr Prasad said those years taught him far more than farming.
His parents, he realised much later, were quietly teaching him economics, entrepreneurship and the dignity of labour.
His father also worked seasonally as a sugarcane cutter, exposing the family to the realities of an economy influenced by decisions made thousands of kilometres away.
As a young boy, one question stayed with him.
“If my parents worked harder than almost anyone I knew, why did we still struggle?”
The answer came years later.
“Poverty is not always a lack of hard work. Sometimes it is a lack of opportunity.”
That question, he said, eventually shaped the career that would take him beyond Fiji and into international development.
The second classroom he spoke on was the road to school.
The road to school
As a young boy, every morning meant an eight-kilometre walk to school.
There were days of laughter, rain-soaked uniforms, climbing mango trees and, as he joked, “picking a few bananas”.
There were also days when simply getting to school felt like an achievement.
A few years later, his father handed him an old bicycle. It had one gear and unreliable brakes but to the young Naren, it was priceless.
“It wasn’t just a bicycle. It was my father’s way of saying, ‘Your education is more important than my convenience.’”
When he left Fiji to study in France, it was that same road that gave him confidence. The lesson was simple.
“If a little boy from Vunicagi could walk eight kilometres to school every day… he could learn French and get a degree.”
“Success isn’t about being the fastest. It’s about never stopping.”
Dreketi Central College
His third classroom was Dreketi Central College itself.
It was here, he said, that books introduced him to places he had never seen and teachers opened doors he had never imagined.
A visit to his mother’s home this week uncovered old school reports that brought back memories.
One teacher described him as “a very hardworking student”.
Another wrote that he worked hard but was “very shy and quiet” and should ‘speak more in class’.
The comments made him smile and reminisce the good old days.
“Today, I spend much of my life speaking to audiences around the world,” he told students.
“So if you’re sitting here thinking, ‘I’m too shy. I’m not confident.’ Don’t decide your future too early. Give yourself time to grow.”
He also acknowledged teachers who left lasting impressions on his life, saying simple words of encouragement could stay with a student forever.
“Teachers… You don’t simply teach lessons. You shape futures.”
Taking the next step
The bottom line is, Dr Prasad’s message was not about overnight success or extraordinary talent. It was about always possessing the stubborn willingness to take the next step.
“Tomorrow morning… I would get up… and come back to school. That is all life asks of you. Take the next step. Read one more book. Ask one more question. Stay curious. Work hard. Be kind.”
He urged them to dream beyond the boundaries of Dreketi without forgetting the community and soil that raised them.
“Dream beyond Dreketi, but never forget Dreketi. Because one day, people may admire you for what you achieve. But they will remember you for the person you become.”
As his address drew to a close, Dr. Prasad explained why making the long walk back to school this week had mattered so much.
It was never about revisiting a road. It was about honouring it, for leading him down the path of learning.
“I didn’t walk back to remember the road. I just wanted to thank the road, thank the teachers, and thank my parents and this community… for believing that a little boy from Vunicagi could become something more than he ever imagined.”
“One day… this road will belong to you. Walk it with courage. Walk it with kindness. Walk it with humility. And wherever life takes you… never forget to come home. Because success is not measured by how far you go from home. It is measured by how much good you do because of where you came from.”
Dr Naren Prasad pays a courtesy visit to Fiji’s PR Ambassador Luke Daunivalu in 2023. Picture: Fiji Mission Geneva
