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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
For more information on GVIs projects in Fiji please visit
www.gvi.co.uk For more information on our global impact visit
www.gviworld.com
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visit www.gvi.org for more details