12:44 PM |
Tonga: 'Cash For Work' project aims to help villages get back on their feet
Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Mari Moertvedt.
Working For a United Future
"Cash for work is much more important than just money. It is a tool to help the people of Niuatoputapu see what they can achieve and allowing them to forget about what they lost." This was said by Hemaloto Tatafu, project manager of the first "Cash for Work" project in the Pacific.
The island of Niuatoputapu in Tonga was hit by a tsunami in September last year. The remote island host three villages; Falehau, Vaipoa and Hihifo and it has a population of 847 people. In October 2009, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Kingdom of Tonga signed an early recovery project to support the people of Niuatoputapu.
The "Cash for work" project is aimed at helping the villagers "build back better" and allow them to get back on their feet. It has been used all over the world and it allows local community members to rebuild their surroundings with local wage payments provided by UNDP.
Kick start
"The idea is to give them an opportunity to kick start their rebuilding progress. In this particular project we design and agree with the communities that they would plant cash crops and clean their surroundings. The village plans includes other activities such as fishing. The idea is to encourage them to continue the activities even when the project ends next year," says governance team leader in UNDP Fiji Multi Country Office, Sainimili Nabou.
The project aims to develop sustainable livelihoods and focus on vulnerable groups such as youths and women groups. The people involved in the project are paid 20 Paaga each day, equivalent to about 10 USD. With this money they are planting a number of pandanus, sweet potatoes, taro and banana for the villages.
"Everybody is very happy about this program for a lot of reasons, firstly because it generates unity among youth members and other community members, but more importantly, it generates new ideas among village members on what to do to sustain and keep this momentum going," says Muli Vaoahi, Hihifo Village Youth Groups Leader and member of the Development Committee organized to supervise and ensure the sustainability of this project.
Launched with the end in mind
The "Cash for work" project in Niuatoputatpu is the first in the Pacific and it was launched with the end in mind. UNDP want to ensure that when it finishes, people will not drop everything and go back to the way they were before.
"We want cash for work to be the start of a new way of life for the people of Niuatoputapu. Our wish is that it will work as an instrument to open up the eyes of the people to see what they can achieve and then they keep working toward that vision and leave the difficulty and challenges brought about by the tsunami behind." says Hemaloto Tatafu.
UNDP is working closely with the communities to ensure sustainability in this project. Development committees have been set up in all the villages, including youth members, women and men and they are all chaired by the town officer in each village. By working like this UNDP are taking advantage of networks that are already present on the island.
"We emphasized that they need to develop work plans not only for the "Cash for work" project, but also for the next two or three months. Each village did develop a work plan with mechanisms in place to ensure that outcomes were going to be achieved," Ms. Tatafu adds.
For full story: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/06/tonga-cash-for-work-project-aims-to-help-villages-get-back-on-their-feet/
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pacific islands media association
pima.nius@gmail.com
aotearoa, new zealand
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