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Capacity building
Marine Scholarships
South Pacific Projects is committed to creating training and employment opportunities for our community partners. By offering community representatives the opportunity to come to our site and take part fully in the 6 week programme that we offer volunteers, we provide the knowledge, training and methods that can help our community Marine Scholars to make a difference.
Our scholarship programme is also available to the staff members of our project partners and students from the University of the South Pacific. The additional experience and training offered is invaluable, creating a stronger bond between ourselves and our partners further and advancing conservation efforts in our host country. The benefits of hosting scholarship participants is mutual, the knowledge and skill our staff and volunteers obtain from our partners and community members is extensive, rapidly increasing the development and success of the project.
In 2009 we hosted many scholarship candidates, including multiple representatives from the Fisheries Department and the University of The South Pacific; in 2010 we aim to surpass our previous efforts. We also hosted Taioni Vakamoce Delai from Daku village during the second expedition of 2009 as our first community Scholar and due to his commitment and skill, he became a full time staff member and a vital component of our team in Fiji. We will continue to search for and train select community members and employ them as SPP staff in the future.
School Environmental Clubs
In 2009 we kicked off two school environmental clubs for the years 7 and 8 students (10-12 years old) of Uluibau District School on Moturiki Island and the Bau District School of Bau Island. Each school was given the chance to name their club, Club Qio (shark) was the name given to the Uluibau School while Club Lion was name chosen by Bau District. During 2009 SPP staff members (particularly Jo Roderick, a volunteer who stayed for the whole year!) and volunteers developed a syllabus that built on the science curriculum set by the Ministry of Education, furthering their environmental education. Every week volunteers travelled to schools, promoting a different topic and pushing valuable environmental messages to the young students. Our aim is to increase the knowledge of the environment and empowering the children with a greater sense of respect and ownership for their local environment. Aside from that it is a lot fun interacting with the vibrant and enthusiastic children; we try to make it a fun and educational experience for the children and for you!
Alternative livelihoods
Community empowerment is critical to our project goals; we want to ensure that we work together with each community on every facet of the project so that that they do not become dependent on our actions and presence. It is not our policy to distribute funds directly to communities but to help them to research and source sustainable alternative sources of livelihood, providing different revenue streams besides the value of their marine resources. There are generally few opportunities for initiating alternative sources of income in developing countries; the amount of resources it requires to start a new business far exceeds the logistical capabilities of most Fijian families. By helping Fijian communities initiate sustainable alternative sources of revenue we also aspire to help alleviate some of the pressure placed on the local marine resources. Without diverting the demands experienced by the marine environment there is little chance of a successful rehabilitation of the reef. Therefore, a significant portion of our community empowerment can be listed under our education scheme.
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