nuclear-news

Fiji’s solar expert grandmothers show the way

AUDIO Fijian grandmothers educating locals on solar panel installation http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/fiji-grandmothers-educating-younger-generation-on-solar-pane/4826594  Jul 17, 2013   A group of grandmothers in Fiji are educating the younger generation on solar panel installation to generate electricity in their villages.

The elderly women underwent training at the Barefoot College in India, an NGO that provides rural communities with training and education.  Fiji’s Womens Minister, Dr Jiko Luveni, has told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat program the training programme was specifically for grandmothers.

“The idea behind it is that these women are already established in the villages,” Dr Luveni said.

“They have their homes and they are not likely to leave the village as soon as they come back with their skill. Dr Luveni says the elderly women are now celebrated as solar experts and are supervising their young trainees as they install the solar equipment.

“After the training, it was these young people who actually installed the equipment in each house,” she said.

“The grandmothers were merely supervising what they did.

She says the initiative is bringing about various other social benefits to the villages.

“In this particular village that I went into, I could see that the moral of the villagers were boosted as they have a product that is an evidence of development in their villages,” Dr Luveni said.

“That village has gone into some income generating activity…They are more development oriented in their thinking.

“That particular village now has established a canteen and he young people are being recruited to help in the assemblage and installation of the solar equipment in those villages. Thereby, gaining an income,” she said.

July 18, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decentralised, OCEANIA, Resources -audiovicual