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Story: South Pacific peoples

Solomon Islands nursing students

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Solomon Islands nursing students

Rudgard Palapu (left) and Relmah and Humpress Harrington, pictured here in 2000, came to New Zealand on government scholarships. As trained nurses, they were to return home to help their people. On arrival in Wellington, they had also faced challenges, as Humpress Harrington explained: ‘I think we experienced culture shock in the environment … I didn’t even know how to stop the bus … even going up in lifts, we didn’t have lifts.’

Using this item

New Zealand Nurses Organisation

Reference: Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand (August 2000): 7.

by Anne Manchester

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How to cite this page

Carl Walrond, South Pacific peoples – Island groups and recent migration, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1299/solomon-islands-nursing-students (accessed 5 June 2026).

Story by Carl Walrond, published 4 March 2009, updated 1 July 2024.