Building of Resilient Communities in Ra , Fiji

Always thank you to all of our GlobalGiving supporters.

In this report, we want to highlight how your donations to Fiji are recognized at the national level and how they are shaping human resources who give back to their communities long after training.

Earlier in October this year, OISCA Fiji celebrated its 35th anniversary. The celebration was held at the National Youth Training Center which operates under the Ministry of Youth and Sports. This year, we have prepared a large-scale ceremony, as our 30th anniversary couldn’t be celebrated amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The anniversary was held in the presence of the Honorable Jese Saukuru, Minister of Youth and Sports (the Ministry is OISCA’s local counterpart), as well as His Excellency Rokuichiro Michii, Ambassador of Japan to Fiji. Both the minister and the ambassador praised OISCA’s long-standing efforts in promoting agriculture in rural areas and mangrove planting aimed at building disaster-resilient communities. They also offered words of encouragement, expressing their hope that OISCA would continue its activities for the future development of Fiji.

During the ceremony, the traditional Fijian sevusevu ritual was performed, and participants shared kava - a beverage made from ground root of kava plant. The event also featured powerful dances performed by young people dressed in magnificent traditional costumes, making it a ceremony rich in Fijian culture.

OISCA has been operating in Fiji since 1991, providing agricultural technical training to young people. Additionally, to ensure that agriculture can be sustained long-term, we have worked to build a favorable environment, including engaging in tree planting. We have been operating in the National Youth Center, which is run by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. OISCA was trusted with the management of the agricultural course at this center. Through this work, we have trained and empowered more than 1,000 young people to date.

The 35th anniversary ceremony was also attended by coordinators, who are responsible for the projects on the ground and are supported by your generous contributions. All of them are graduates who studied agriculture at our training center. After the ceremony, alumni who had gathered from across the country held a discussion session to exchange ideas on what they could do to support OISCA’s efforts to build disaster-resilient communities.

One of our graduates expressed a desire to work with OISCA in protecting coral reefs. This graduate currently runs a hotel in Fiji, and coral reefs present an important tourism resource. Moving forward with his proposal, a site survey was conducted in November, and coral reef conservation activities are now set to move forward.

OISCA’s strength lies in having such graduates throughout the country, enabling us to coordinate activities in response to local needs. Going forward, we will continue to carry out activities that are closely attuned to the feelings and needs of the local communities, while making full use of our alumni network.

We truly appreciate your continued support and wish you the happiest holidays. We sincerely hope to continue our Fiji project journey with you by our side in the next year.

Thank you as always to all our supporters here on GlobalGiving. With your generosity, the Ra community continues to build a stronger coastline and more resilient lives – now in a cleaner and more efficient way. In this report, we want to introduce a small but smart innovation we have adopted to reduce waste and make our mangrove planting more sustainable. 

OISCA has been planting mangroves in Fiji’s Viti Levu island since 1993. Once abundant in mangroves, the southwest coastlines of Viti Levu saw widespread forest degradation by the early 1990s due to devastating tropical cyclones. Coast mangroves are powerful ecosystems that protect shores from storms and waves, as well as absorb sediment from rivers. They also provide habitat for local fisheries, increasing biodiversity and contributing to the economy of local communities. In rehabilitating mangroves, OISCA is taking a sustainable approach, engaging local communities and using hand tools for planting activities. 

Usually, mangrove planting can be carried out by directly planting propagules (parts of a parent tree that detach and develop into a new mangrove) into the soil along the coast. However, this method only works in calm areas such as bays, where there is little wave or wind action. This is because before the roots can fully develop, the propagules may be knocked over or washed away by waves. Since our reforestation site faces the open sea and is exposed to strong wind and wave action, we have to plant saplings that are pre-grown in a nursery until they have five to six leaves. Until recently, we used to grow these saplings not in nursery pots, but in plastic bags with punched holes, so the tree roots can protrude from them. When planting the saplings, we removed the bags. However, since the bags could not be reused, they would turn into waste, which was our great concern. Plastic bags take years to decompose, and if not disposed properly, might enter the ocean, posing threat to marine life through ingestion and entanglement.

Therefore, we recently made an experiment by growing seedlings in half-cut containers. Each container could fit 50 seedlings, and in the end, there was no negative impact on their growth. Not only can these containers be reused, but they also make saplings management easier and require less soil. With this small innovation, it is now also more convenient to move the saplings as one person can easily handle a 50-sapling container at a time. 

Moving forward, we plan to adopt this method for seedling cultivation in other reforestation sites. For this step-by-step progress, we have you to thank. Your contributions advance Fijians’ resilience to climate change and improve coastal livelihoods. We will continue to do our best to support local communities and the environment through powerful mangrove lands.