MARY Ballantine, the founding mother of Ballantine Memorial School, had dedicated her life to educating iTaukei girls.
In the early 1900s, the idea of indigenous females getting any type of education was frowned upon.
But this did not deter Ms Ballantine.
She reasoned that if iTaukei women were given an opportunity to be educated, they could in turn support their husbands and families and even their local community.
Ms Ballantine was born on October 28, 1867, during the Maori Wars at Brooklyn, Papakura Valley, near Manukau Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand.
She was the daughter of a sheep farmer who barely scraped a living on a mixed farm.
The Ballantines lived a very difficult life and while she espoused the need for iTaukei girls to get educated, Ms Ballantine barely received an education herself
. She committed her life to Christ and this empowered Ms Ballantine in her persistent pursuit to help girls.
She served as a mission sister at Rewa, Bua and Matavelo, Ba, and later took charge of the Methodist Girls High School in Ba for 17 years.
While other missionaries left because of ill-heath, she continued to work with locals and secured an assignment with the then Colonial Sugar Refining Company to carry out their laundry washing.
Driven by her vision to educate iTaukei women, Ms Ballantine used the income earned from laundry washing to pay for materials needed for setting up a school.
Unfortunately, in 1918 she passed away.
However, she left behind a small estate with strict instructions that it had “to be applied to the education of Fijian girls”.
Newly-elected president of Ballantine’s Ex-Scholar’s Association (BESA) Julia Korovou said the idea behind the founding of the school was the need to have educated iTaukei women who would later support their husbands and families.
“The reason it was initially established in Ba was because there was a need to have educated iTaukei women,” she said.
“The belief back then was that the men, in their role as leaders of households and in society, would only become strong if they had educated women supporting them.”
Ms Ballantine’s lifelong dream became a reality in 1919. One year after her passing, the Ballantine Memorial Fund was established.
sole purpose of the fund was to build a school where iTaukei girls could be trained to be good wives and mothers as well as secure roles as teachers and nurses. That gave birth to Ballantine Memorial School (BMS).
According to Ms Korovou, the first site for the school was across the road from The Fiji Times building at Butt Street.
The education centre was located at the spot where the Wesley Church Hall is now situated before it moved into Muanikau (Nasonini) on September 15, 1934.
The school began with classes one to eight and went on to establish high school in 1933.
This year, the school celebrates its 86th anniversary.
“We are 86 years old this year but this is only for the school’s establishment here in Delainavesi in 1933,” she said.
“If you take into account the school’s first establishment in Matavelo, Ba, the school is well over a century old.”
Ms Korovou said the school’s marketability was not only because of its focus on the teaching and nursing professions, it delved into other areas of society as well.
Ms Korovou said because of the vision and the legacy that was left behind by the late Mary Ballantine, Fijian women’s education gradually improved.
“She gave all she had, sacrificed so much in order for iTaukei women to be educated and to help support the men.”
