Villages in Fiji are Embracing Solar Power

Women from some villages in Fiji are biting the bullet and have successfully applied for and won grants to enable houses in their villages to be illuminated by solar lights.

This is a successs tory not just for the women but also for the environment.

Here is the article from the Fiji Times

Women from all walks of life have become increasingly involved in the development of their society.

There are many women achieving goals and aims never thought possible while some have worked their way up the ladder by mere hard work.

Most of the time, the success of women in urban areas have become the highlights of the new era. However, there are women in rural areas who are fast stamping their mark in the development of community life. Many would wonder what exactly needs developing in rural communities as life in the village has so often been described as simple and easy. This is partially true in terms of abundant food supply and natural resources.

On the other hand, there are certain areas of community life that need development and improvement such as proper water and renewable energy sustainability.

This is where the Macuata Soqosoqo Ni Marama comes in. The women's association has developed a 10 year strategy to identify the main thematic areas to work on such as education, conserving natural resources, improving community infrastructure within the Macuata Province.

The intended aim is to enhance sustainable development and poverty eradication with its local communities. Their first initiative was the launch of the solar project in Visoqo.
Association fundraiser and adviser Sereana Cokanasiga said the women of Macuata got together in 2005 as part of their attempt to focus and maximise their impact with community development within the Macuata province.

She said there were five development areas they looked into and renewable energy through solar energy was one of the strategic plans.

"In 2005, we had a meeting and got all the leading traditional women leaders from the 12 districts to develop a ten-year strategy to identify and prioritise the main development areas. This included areas like education, conserving natural resources and improving community infrastructure. The underlying point was to enhance sustainable development and eradicate poverty with the local communities in the province.

"With the rising cost of fuel globally, and in Fiji, this will definitely be a financial constraint on many rural communities such as Visoqo. This is an unavoidable situation. We are not a fossil fuel-producing nation so the burden of keeping up with fuel costs is usually expressed unfortunately in unsustainable natural resource exploitation, a contributing factor to poverty."

Mrs Cokanasiga said the association is trying to emphasise the need to encourage and invest more in renewable energy.

This is far more beneficial to rural communities in the long run. During Earth Hour celebrations in Fiji, Visoqo Village in the northern province showed its support by turning its lights on to renewable energy.

"The launch of the solar project in Visoqo is our small contribution to the global effect for climate change awareness. An effective way to reduce carbon emissions is to promote renewable energy, which is essentially what this project is about and what our association supports," she said.

"We have also received funding from Canada fund and the International Women's Association. There are 15 solar panels in Visoqo Village, seven in Cawadevo and six in Nasovivi. These solar panels have a life span of 35 years so solar panel workshops will be conducted on how to maintain the system after 35 years. A utility trust has been set up where each family in the community contributes at least $14. The money collected would be used to maintain the solar panels."

She said the work of the association was a stepping stone for women in all rural and remote communities.

Mrs Cokanasiga said they felt proud and happy knowing that children in the village are now able to study properly with solar power.

WWF Fiji country program project officer Francis Areki said the solar project was targeted at sustaining sustainable community development and livelihoods through the provision of renewable energy.

He said the project highlighted the need for concerted efforts not only to address the growing underdevelopment of rural areas in Fiji but also to assist communities with the impacts of climate adaption.

"Hopefully, by addressing one basic essential development need, communities such as that targeted by this project can be better able to focus on more pressing climate adaption and natural resource management needs. The project not only looks at promoting renewable energy with rural communities but also works towards strengthening such communities' capacity and ability to maintain and manage such renewable energy systems themselves.

"The goal is to reduce the targets communities need for natural resource exploitation and sustained underdevelopment to cover for ever rising fuel costs. Energy is considered a vital component to achieving sustainable development in any country especially for Pacific Island nations such as Fiji. Due to heavy geological reasons, it is unfortunate that Fiji is a non-oil producing nation making it heavily dependent on importing much of its petroleum to meet much of its national energy demands and again susceptible to escalating global fuel prices."

Mr Areki said the solar project in Visoqo village, with the support of the association was funded by the United Nations Development Programme GEF Small Grants Programme. He said the women prioritized the 12 districts in Macuata in order of the level of development.
Mr Areki said they then agreed to focus much of its attention in improving the status of those identified as least developed.

"Visoqo Village is located in the district of Namuka and is currently listed as the four least developed districts in Macuata. Majority of villages in Namuka district as with its other least developed district counterparts including Udu, Cikobia and Dogotuki face similar problems relating to the non-existence of electricity, poor water access, lack of basic communications and either poor or non existent transport and road systems.

"One of the identified community development needs was energy. Further consultation with the community and analysis of the situation indicated energy as such was a cross-cutting issue that needed to be addressed as it indirectly related back to natural resource use utilisation and was effectively impeding upon the communities ability to focus their energy and income on other much needed projects"

Mr Areki said due to lack of refrigeration and isolation in terms of frequency, the community spent much of their household income and time fishing on fuel to provide lighting in their homes and for their children to do their homework.

He said this created an unending cycle of natural resource exploitation and underdevelopment for such communities.

"The four least developed districts in Macuata therefore comes as no surprise as having 79 per cent of its village households dependent on either wick or pressure lamps as its basic form of lighting. The Pacific Island Energy Policy (PIEP) developed in 2004 clearly identifies with achieving sustainable development and environmental conservation within the context of renewable energy for Pacific communities. The development of the policy was partly in response to growing concerns arising out of climate change. It was also concerned about the impacts on rural and remote communities' inability to keep pace with development and adaption due to heavy reliance on petroleum products," said Mr Areki.

In 2007, the Macuata Soqosoqo ni Marama facilitated a training workshop in Visoqo Village to train women's network members on the development of community climate change adaptation action plans and implementation with their various communities.

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=85672