Vakalala-Kamikamica was born in the village Navunievu,
Bua Province,
Colony of Fiji, as the fourth eldest of nine children. In 1957, the
Methodist Church of Australasia awarded her the Centenary Academic Scholarship, which enabled her to study English and geography at the
University of New England in
Australia, and in 1961 she became the first Fijian indigenous woman to graduate in a foreign university. ==Personal life and death==