1. NACULA ISLAND TO GET NEW HEALTH CENTRE – The island of Nacula in the southern Yasawa Group will soon see the establishment of a new health centre following the 2015 national budget announcement.
2. PIDF MEETS KEY FRENCH POLYNESIAN LEADERS – The Pacific Islands Development Forum has met with the President of French Polynesia His Excellency Édouard Fritch and leaders of French Polynesia’s Civil Society and Private Sector Organisations.
3. THREE MORE RETIRED VOLUNTEER TEACHERS BOUND FOR THE MARSHALL ISLANDS – The Public Service Commission has reminded teachers travelling to Pacific island countries on the role they play in developing the region.
4. GREEN FEED AN ALTERNATIVE FOR LIVESTOCK – Livestock farmers have been encouraged to use Green Feed as an alternative feed for pigs.
1 NACULA ISLAND TO GET NEW HEALTH CENTRE
The island of Nacula in the southern Yasawa Group will soon see the establishment of a new health centre following the 2015 national budget announcement.
Government’s district officer Lautoka/Yasawa Ruth Atu said the decision to establish a new health centre in Nacula followed a request made to the Prime Minister during his visit to Yasawa this year.
“Villagers currently travel by boat to Naviti to be seen by medical staff and this is very dangerous given that the waters are always rough especially for children and pregnant women,” she said.
“Once the health centre is built in Nacula, it would also allow for better coordination as currently the population to staff ratio is quite high.”
Mrs Atu further elaborated that once completed the $510, 000 facility would also be able to carry out other awareness activities on healthy living.
Prime Minister Hon. Voreqe Bainimarama had recently announced that health facilities which used to be constructed from consensus (population count) of the area will now be built on the locality of the settlements.
“Before nursing stations used to be built at a central location which could cater for a few villages but that could mean a village which is 2 kilometers away from the facility and one that is 12km from the facility. Both would be seen by the same facility even though the one had more difficulties to go through such as transportation to get to the facility,” he said.
“But now we will build them taking into account the distance and remoteness of the settlement or village.”
“We want to take services such as medical facilities to the people, at their doorstep and this is one of the best ways to address it,” PM Bainimarama said.
Works on the new health centre will begin early next year.
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2 PIDF MEETS KEY FRENCH POLYNESIAN LEADERS
The Pacific Islands Development Forum has met with the President of French Polynesia His Excellency Édouard Fritch and leaders of French Polynesia’s Civil Society and Private Sector Organisations.
The meeting is part of the PIDF commitment to seek support from Pacific Island Territories to be part of the transition to a Green Economy.
Community Leaders that the PIDF met in Papeete French Polynesia include:
– Angelo Frebault, President of French Polynesia’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (CESC). CESC advises the President of French Polynesia and the President of the Assembly of French Polynesia on economic, social or cultural planning.
– Stephane Chin Loy, President of French Polynesia’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services and Trades (CCISM). CCISM is a public institution whose mission is to contribute to the development of Polynesian companies.
Speaking on the meetings the Deputy Secretary General of the PIDF Mr Penijamini Lomaloma stated:“French Polynesia was one of the Pacific Territories that has been part of the PIDF from its early beginnings in 2012. The latest meetings in Papeete were an opportunity to update the French Polynesian authorities of developments with the PIDF since its establishment. This includes the important work currently being undertaken to prepare the foundational legal document for the PIDF, the PIDF Agreement, which will set out its governance structure, membership criteria, financial strategies etc.
Discussions also covered a Business to Business Forum that the PIDF is scheduled to co-host with the WWF early next year to raise awareness amongst the Pacific business community of the business case for the green economy.”
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3 THREE MORE RETIRED VOLUNTEER TEACHERS BOUND FOR THE MARSHALL ISLANDS
The Public Service Commission has reminded teachers travelling to Pacific island countries on the role they play in developing the region.
The Commission’s permanent secretary Mr Parmesh Chand today presented airline tickets to retired Fijian teachers Mr Joji Bogitolu, Mr Kavekini Boselawa and Mr Seru Curuivalu. The three will travel to the Republic of the Marshall Islands to work as teachers through a Fiji-Marshall Islands Government working scheme.
Mr Chand confirmed that this is part of the second cohort of senior volunteer teachers to be engaged by the Fiji Volunteer Service (FVS) to work in the Republic of Marshall Islands. Twelve (12) teachers were part of the pioneer assignment that left in 2012 and returned earlier this year. Following their engagement under the FVS, a majority of these teachers were offered contracts with the Government of the Republic of Marshall Islands to be re-engaged under their Education Sector for a further two years.
“In Fiji’s commitment to grow this scheme, both for deployment of volunteers domestically and regionally, we will see a lot more activity in this area, with a lot more senior and junior volunteers appointed for domestic and regional service.”
“This scheme is about much more than education and the FVS is happy to assist in areas of national interest such as environment, climate change, health and nutrition, disaster management and mitigation and various other areas of public service.”
The permanent secretary said that there is enormous potential in the mentioned areas and that a greater effort will be made to engage young, qualified professionals into these areas. Earlier this year, ten teacher graduates underwent a three-week training program to facilitate their engagement with the National Substance Abuse Advisory Council’s (NSAAC) community and school based awareness and educational programs. These programs by the NSAAC address critical social issues such as HIV/AIDS education, alcohol and substance abuse, child abuse, violence against girls and women and lifestyle diseases.
In farewelling the three retired volunteer teachers, Mr. Chand expressed the heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the Public Service Commission for their acceptance of the assignments and also to the Government of the Republic of Marshall Islands for ensuring the smooth running of this scheme. Mr. Chand also encouraged the volunteer teachers to continue to be law-abiding citizens and to be good ambassadors for Fiji.
Mr Joji Bogitolu thanked the Fijian Government, PSC and FVS for their continued hard work and for providing the retired teachers an opportunity to give back to the community.
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4 GREEN FEED AN ALTERNATIVE FOR LIVESTOCK
Livestock farmers have been encouraged to use Green Feed as an alternative feed for pigs.
his newly introduced method is for the sole purpose of addressing the feed issues faced by smallholder to Semi-commercial pig farmers.
The Ministry of Agriculture’s principal research officer (Livestock) Eroni Tamani said a collaborative research trial work with the Suva City Council (SCC) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Green Feed is still at itspreliminary phase and has demonstrated source benefit to pig farms.
“Green Feed is the natural food such as market vegetable and fruit wastes that normally goes to the landfill which comprises of kumala, cassava and other organic materials that are fed to pigs.
“The intention of Green Feed is to try and address the issue of high feed cost. The idea of Green Feed started in December last year because there were concerns from stakeholders that there is a lot of crop residue that has the opportunity to become better utilised in terms of feed for our animals,” Mr Tamani said.
Eseta Mauvu, a piggery farmer in Makoi is into her seventh month of using the Green Feed method.
“With this method of piggery feed, it has helped me financially as I do not spend money on the feed and my piglets grow naturally at a reasonable rate.
“I am grateful to the Ministry of Agriculture and the Suva City Council who are continuously supporting me on my farm for advice and feed,” Eseta said.
The feed is supplied daily by the SCC, which comes from vegetables market wastes.
SCC Health Educator Taito Waqaiyavana said the idea of Green Feed largely came about as the Council try to identify how to properly dump vegetable market waste.
“We had to analyse which type of waste is costing us more when disposing at Naboro so we came to a conclusion that Green Waste is an organic waste that was most expensive to manage and the idea of composting was formulated,” he said.
Mr Waqaiyavana said SCC collects all the organic wastes from the markets and brings it to the Samabula Compost Centre where its processed and provided to three farmers currently involved in the project
DEPTFO