By Stephanie Rice (pictured with our crew)

From a distance the Pacific nations to Australia's north appear an idyllic tropical paradise.

Yet when you look closer, these 14 nations are locked in a life and death battle against poverty and disease.

In 2007 some 800,000 children died from preventable causes in the East Asia and Pacific regions before they reached their 5th birthday.

In the Solomon Islands , where I have just spent five days, some 1000 children die unnecessarily each year.

The Solomon Islands may just be a three hour flight from Brisbane but in many ways it is a world away.

Its health system is threadbare. It has one doctor for every 30,000 people and more alarmingly one anesthetist for the entire population of 500,000.

And it's the children who are suffering the most with more than 50 percent of the population under 18.

The key to giving this next generation of Solomon Island 's kids the best start in life is to ensure they are protected against preventable diseases.

And here is where an Aussie company, SunRice, is helping the United Nation's Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to conduct an immunisation campaign to ensure children in the Pacific are protected against preventable diseases such as Hepatitus B and Measles. 

As a SunRice ambassador I traveled to the Solomon Islands to see first hand this vital work.

>> See Steph Rice's story from the Solomon Islands on Sunrise Thursday, 1 October

Sunrice has made a significant, on-going commitment to financially support UNICEF's immunisation campaign which is reaching kids across the Pacific. A major part of the SunRice support is to provide critical cold-chain equipment to ensure the vaccines dont spoil in the tropical heat. They are also helping UNICEF train health workers, promote public awareness of the campaign and purchase some of the vaccines.

Its 10 am and already it is oppressively hot. Yet hundreds of mothers have brought their children to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Guadalcanal Province .

It is not a hospital as we would understand a hospital. There is no doctor and just one nurse. The few rooms here are basic, the instruments are old - if not missing altogether.

The mothers wait patiently throughout the morning to get their children immunised.  Many of the women have walked many hours to get here. The nurse tells me that one woman walked for two days from her remote mountain home, just for this vaccination program.

I meet Catherine, a 30 year old mother who carried her two children Nathan, 5, and Selina, 2, on the two hour walk from home to the hospital. Afterwards she invites me back to her village.

Catherine's home is a rustic wooden hut with a thatched grass roof. Inside it is bare. There is no electricity or running water. To survive her family grow vegetables and tend chickens and pigs.

"If I don't get my children immunised they will fall sick and may even die," she tells me.

The next day I speak to another mother, Ellen, who tells me she has lost two children to illness. She is determined that her two surviving children are not lost to sickness.

She is one of several hundreds of mothers in the remote Buma Community in Malaita Province who bring their children out to be immunised in a special community clinic.

It's a big village of more than a thousand people. Its on a beautiful coastline, the people look happy but it is very basic. Traditional practices still operate here such as the use of ‘shell money' to pay compensation or for wedding dowries.

It is weird to be in Brisbane one day and the next in a remote village which appears to have gone untouched for centuries.

This village is just one that is being reached by 106 medical teams that during September and October plan to reach every corner of the Solomon Islands - an archipelago of more than 1000 mountainous, jungle-covered islands. This vaccination program is being launched through a partnership with UNICEF, The Solomon Island's Goverment, the Australian Government and other partners.

The kids in the Solomon Islands face a lot of challenges. Just over 60% attend school - much less complete it)- and nationally employment  (not unemployment) is 15 percent.

But it is good to know Australia is doing its bit to give these kids the best start in life they can get. Our government provides some 60 percent of the aid budget in the Solomon Islands . This money will be more important than ever given the impact of the global financial crisis may force the Solomon Island government to cut health spending by more than 30 percent.

And it is good to know that an Aussie company, SunRice is also doing its bit in helping fund the work of UNICEF both in the Solomon Islands and across the pacific to save kids lives. Wtih 40 years involvement in the Pacific, SunRice is providing critical help to our less fortunate neighbours.

 Stephanie Rice.

NB: Anedited version of this was sent to members ot the Sunrise Family. Don't get our newsletters? Sign up at www.sunrisefamily.com.au