More than a hundred students in the North are engaged in three-day school holiday programme of learning traditional art.

The students were taught traditional handicrafts skills of weaving mats and making masi at the Holy Family Secondary School yesterday.

The programme is organised by Ministry of Education, Department of Heritage and Arts, Fiji Museum and Fiji Arts Council.

The director of Fiji Museum Meretui Ratunabuabua said this was the first workshop in Labasa this year.

“My ministry ran a similar workshop in Suva during the first week of holidays at the Fiji Museum and we will run another workshop next week in Lautoka,” she said.

She said students may have seen traditional mats and ‘masi’ still had its worth in Fiji and the Pacific at births, weddings, funerals, house decorations and other gatherings.

“But what is of concern is that the knowledge and the ‘know how’ or skills for the production of these art forms are disappearing at an alarming rate,” she said.

“The skills to produce them must be practiced and continued otherwise we will find that no one will know how to weave a mat or produce masi.

“The passing down of these skills was important from the elders to the youth even in the use of language if you don’t practice the use of traditional languages they will be in danger of disappearing through the use of universal languages,” she said.

The programme ends tomorrow.

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