A 27-year-old woman from Bukama, Yasawa, is using her new qualification to improve her business and also help hotel workers turned fishers from her village.

Meme Naulivou graduated last Friday with a Certificate in Micro-qualification in Maintaining Seafood Safety and Quality from the University of the South Pacific.

She was among 16 pioneering graduates.

The programme was funded through a scholarship offered by USP under the Pacific European Union Marine Partnership (PEUMP) Programme.

How she helps villagers

“I registered my business in July and this was amid COVID-19, keeping in mind the struggles everyone was in during the pandemic I knew I had to stand my ground and fight on with my business aspirations,” Ms Naulivou said.

“The idea of starting my business was mainly to help the hotel workers who have now turned full time fishers in our village and these are my cousins and uncles.

“They give me their catch and I sell it on social media. So basically my supply comes from the men in my village.”

The name of business on Facebook is Up Hill Supplies.

She said the qualification had helped her narrow the scope of management down to a microbusiness level, from supply to distribution, from capital to bookkeeping and at the end of the day business growth.

“We have always been catching fish and handling them in ways we had usually done them for years, now that we are qualified in this area I think our quality standards will now be lifted to another level.”

Her message for those impacted by the crisis: “Don’t use COVID-19 as an excuse to be at a loss, anything is possible even in a pandemic.”

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