Yasawa Hub Achievement Report November 2014 Objective: Educational Enrichment and Community Development

GVI successfully implements a short term community support

programme in Navotua Village

In 2014, GVI implemented a short term community support programme in the remote village of Navotua in the Northern Yasawa Islands. GVI Volunteers delivered a variety of initiatives aimed at empowering and supporting the community. Over a period of three months, Navotua, a small isolated village on Nacula Island in the Northern Yasawas, became home to GVIs education and community development project staff and volunteers. Few tourists venture this far up the Yasawa island chain and with no resorts nearby (a main source of employment for many Yasawan villages); the people of Navotua relay on alternative livelihood strategies. Having previously installed rainwater harvesting systems in Navotua, the GVI team set out to build upon existing relationships to develop an impactful support programme for this community. Volunteers divided their time between the education project within the school and working alongside friends and families in Navotua village. GVI Volunteers were fully immersed in village life and participated in daily village activities and special cultural events. Sunday is a particularly important day in the week for Fijian villages and volunteers were able to attend church and have lunch with different families to share this special time. The people of Navotua were immensely welcoming and generous with their time, making volunteer integration within the community extremely successful.

GVI volunteers also worked towards developing more creative resources for the kindergarten class including producing a safe outside space for play and interactive lessons. It was decided that a sandpit would fulfil these needs, enabling volunteers to carry out imaginative lessons focusing on the development of fine motor skills, such as shape and number treasure hunts.

Older children and volunteers worked together to build a sandpit for the

Educational Enrichment Navotua Infant School caters for children from kindergarten to class 3, enabling the youngest children of the village to stay at home throughout the week rather than board at Ratu Meli School in Nacula village. Once students enter class 4, they must board at Ratu Meli Memorial School, a three hour walk from Navotua. With only two teachers and four classes, GVI provided welcome assistance with each age group and facilitated specific catch up lessons for students who needed extra support.

Classroom assistance was completed in conjunction with one-to-one reading sessions with each student, enabling them to practice pronunciation and basic comprehension. Additionally, English and Math workshops were regularly delivered to each class, concentrating on topics that the teachers and GVI volunteers had identified as needing further attention.

Additionally, GVI provided regular physical education, arts and crafts, and music lessons, ensuring that children had the resources to enable them to be creative and to experience using new media. Each volunteer used different skills and ideas to bring something special and unique to classroom activities.

Figure 2: Volunteer, Yannick, gives class 3 a violin lesson.

Figure 1: Class 3 and 4 make their own picture frames in their weekly arts and crafts lesson.

Figure 4: Class 1 showing off their dream catchers

Figure 3: Students playing in the sandpit

infant school.

Furthermore, volunteers designed and implemented water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) lessons on topics such as tooth brushing, hand washing, personal hygiene and wound care. Lessons were practical and focused on changing routine and behaviour to support better overall daily hygiene. In conjunction with the basic hygiene classes, volunteers installed several hand washing stations called tippy taps within the village. Practical workshops were delivered on how to build these simple structures, which involved a variety of people from both the youth group and womens organisation. By involving members of the community from different age ranges, GVI aimed to ensure a holistic approach to our methodology. Volunteers also painted several murals on school walls to enhance educational development and make the school environment more stimulating. Teachers and GVI volunteers discussed the most appropriate paintings for the school and decided to focus on images relating to the natural environment around them. Additionally, classes were delivered on composting and nutritional awareness to support the creation of a vegetable garden and two large compost bins. GVI volunteers used resources they found in the nearby woods to create raised bed areas, and fences to keep animals out. Students helped to plant seeds and were responsible for watering the vegetable garden every day. Compost from the newly built bin on school grounds will be used to add extra nutrients to the school garden as well as reducing household waste. Produce grown in the school garden will be distributed among the students families and used to cater for special occasions such as end of year picnics.

Figure 5: Testing out a tippy-tap

Figure 6: Mural of the parts of a flower

Figure 7: Mural painted by GVI volunteers

Figure 8: Students creating their vegetable garden

Community Development Prior to the commencement of any community project work, GVI volunteers ensured in-depth household surveys were conducted and an extensive assessment of the existing rainwater tanks available in the village was completed. From these results, volunteers carried out basic maintenance on broken rainwater harvesting systems such as repairing the church guttering and creating better drainage around water sources.

GVI also delivered training workshops on tank cleaning and maintenance to the youth group which enables the community to sustain and maintain their own rainwater harvesting systems without outside intervention. This included involving the youth in cleaning all of the tanks within the village to prepare for the rainy season, to ensure all water collected would be clean and safe to drink.

GVI further increased the overall rainwater holding capacity by 15,000 litres within Navotua through the donation and installation of Rainwater harvesting systems at the primary school and the village community hall.

A further initiative focused on assisting the village youth to create a communal vegetable garden. The youth were keen to grow their own produce which they could sell at resorts on the other islands within the area. As well as providing the seeds and tools to develop the garden, GVI volunteers helped to facilitate plans for a sustainable business plan for getting produce grown to market and gave advice on re-investment into the project. This helped to designate specific responsibilities to each member of the group in order to ensure the regular up-keep of the garden and the plans and tasks involved in the long-term development of the project.

Figure 9: Seeds and educational materials on nutrition

Figure 10: GVI and the Navotua youth replace a water tank after cleaning it

Income Generation Through several workshops, GVI volunteers taught the womens group of Navotua how to create purses and wallets out of weaved upcycled pieces of plastic from waste packaging such as crisps and cookie wrappers. A workshop on how to make beads for creating jewellery from old paper, such as newspaper print, was also delivered. These newly gained skills can be used to create innovative, upcycled products to sell in the tourist market which is held every other week. Due to the lack of official employment in Navotua, developing alternative income generation is crucial to this community. This means that the community can create something both beautiful and useful made entirely of waste material which wouldnt ordinarily be recycled due to the lack of waste management infrastructure within the Yasawas. Not only providing much needed income but reducing the amount of rubbish which is burnt within the community. Community First Aid Workshops Currently, Navotua does not a health centre that is easily accessible to the community and it became clear from living in the village that there was a general lack awareness when it came to simple medical practice. In tropical climates, even small wounds can become badly infected and pose serious health risks if left untreated. In response to this issue the GVI team delivered a basic first aid training course to the womens group which focused on rehydration solutions, wound care, emergency first response, heat related illnesses and splinting. Professional development sessions were also attended by the teachers at the school to ensure injured pupils would have access to first aid.

At the end of the project, both volunteers and the community felt that they had gained much in experience, skills and friendships from their time in Navotua and GVI hopes to continue the relationship with this open-hearted and hospitable community. GVI Fiji

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