Steve Baser Fiji Scholarship

The Surfer’s Medical Association (SMA) has long supported Pacific healthcare through its
signature Tavarua Scholarship. Founded under the leadership of Paula and Ward Smith, this
program has empowered local Fijian students since the 1990s—starting with conference
coordination in 1992 and expanding into a sustained scholarship fund that supports ongoing
education and mentorship.
Paula’s dedication—often described as the “heart and soul” of SMA in Nabila and
Momi—helped shape the scholarship’s early success. Ward’s legacy and the continuing
commitment of SMA leaders have ensured that the program fosters enduring impact and
local leadership.

The SMA’s scholarship program began when the family of Steve Baser, an SMA member and Tavarua conference attendee who had past away, wanted a way to keep Steve’s memory alive. . The family knew of Steve’s love for Tavarua and the Fijian children and thought that a scholarship fund for these children would be a great way to memorialize him.

The initial idea for the fund was to assist children to continue their education through high school because at that time many Fijian children dropped out of school after primary schooling. After primary, students began to incur incidental expenses which most families could not absorb. Our early funding assisted many students who were then able to attain their goal of completing high school. A high school education opened up many opportunites for these village children. Among these early recipients is Brian Ravouvou who went on to nursing school and has now been a nurse in Fiji for many years. Another is Stitveni Vou who, with his high school completion was able to go to through training to become a police officer. Sitiveni is the son of Eloni, a longtime staff member of Tavarua. Another is Save Nageli who is currently on the Tavarua staff. Seremaia Driu is a recent recipient who completed high school last year and is now working in Fiji for a while but still plans to further his education. We also helped out the primary school of Merewita (Nono) Waqa by buying the much needed textbooks for her school. Nono is the daughter of Waqa, one of Tavarua’s longest working staff members.

After a while some students came to us with a desire to further their education beyond high school. This was such an amazing desire for village kids – how could we refuse? We decided to extend our funding to university students though it would be more costly to fund. We then put more focus on fundraising, including adding a small add-on to Tavarua conference fees which would go directly to the scholarship fund. We had a few students drop out of university after a year or two so we came up with the plan to pay for half of a students’ expenses, requiring the students’ families to come up with the other half. We figured that the family’s effort to come up with half would be a big incentive to the students to work hard and complete their studies, to not waste their families’ hard earned money. We then helped to fund many students for some college years or for specific college programs or courses. The biggest stoke for us has been the educational success of Sirlei Masi, son of Ruve who is on the cleaning staff on Tavarua and a single mom. Sireli graduated from high school, wanted to go on to university, received his Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture, and is now in Japan working on his Masters Degree! This is a huge accomplishment for a village boy.