Sanaroa Island is an island, part of

D'Entrecasteaux Islands D'Entrecasteaux Islands () are situated near the eastern tip of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The group spans a distance of , has a total land area of approximately and is separated from the Papua New G ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, located east of

Fergusson Island Fergusson Island is the largest island of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, in Papua New Guinea. It has an area of , and mostly consists of mountainous regions, covered by rain forests. There are three large volcanoes on the island. Fergusson Island ...

Milne Bay Province Milne Bay is a province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Alotau. The province covers 14,345 km2 of land and 252,990 km2 of sea, within the province there are more than 600 islands, about 160 of which are inhabited. The province has ...

, at . The population of Sanaroa is less than 6000.

Education

Sanaroa has one primary school run by the Catholic Church. Students come from all over Sanaroa, some walking or canoeing to school. Many of the students have rarely or never left the island, and have little exposure to urban life. The island's two main religions are the United Church and Catholic Church. In 2007 a Christian Mission Fellowship church was established. Today many students have formally done grade 8 and many have continued to High School. However the biggest problem that the students face is school fees and unfortunately many have withdrawn from school. Despite the problems a few others have been assisted and supported by their parents and relatives have ventured to find jobs in towns and are working. Education is recently seen as important to raise the

standard of living Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society. A contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, standard of living is generally concerned with objective metrics outsid ...

and bring changes to the villages and families. Another elementary school has been built in Siawawa section to cater to children due to distance. The person behind the planning and building of the school is Mr Papu Martine from Kogeta Village.

Council areas

Sanaroa's three council areas are Etana, Siawawa Udaudana and Tewala island. The island has four council areas mainly surrounded by sea.

Language

Sanaroa language has faded or disappeared. The local people call it the K language because the 'k' sound is used frequently. Today there are no persons speaking the language. The last woman who used the "K" language was Mis Abokagu from Gadigadili Village. Sanaroa was part of the

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

of the

Dobu language Dobu or Dobuan is an Austronesian language spoken in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a lingua franca for 100,000 people in D'Entrecasteaux Islands D'Entrecasteaux Islands () are situated near the eastern tip of New Guinea in the ...

, which has 100,000 speakers.

Life style

The local people live a subsistence-farming life style. The people on the island go fishing and do gardening to feed themselves. The staple foods are yams, sago, fish and bananas. They use canoes, dinghies and other sea-going vessels as transport. There are no trucks, cars, mains power or airports on the island. The economy of the island heavily depend on the sea or the marine resource to earn cash from outside communities

Natural events

Sanaroa island is experiencing sea erosion due to wave action, and tides and sea currents and some smaller islands appear to be sinking quickly. D'Entrecasteaux Islands Islands of Milne Bay Province {{PapuaNewGuinea-island-stub