Achieving a gender-equal world requires social innovations that work for women and men and leaves no one behind.

This is what the Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Mereseini Vuniwaqa said at the Ba Women’s Forum Graduation in Ba on Saturday.

“We need to ensure that our women’s economic participation and development is not the exception, but becomes the norm,” she said.

At the event, the minister congratulated the 113 women who graduated.

“I am pleased to know that Ba Women’s Forum is having a discussion with three garment factories, which have opened in Ba, to give access to employment opportunities for their sewing graduates,” Ms Vuniwaqa said.

She also noted how proud she was to have the Ba Women’s Forum actively empowering a lot of women, with the aim to transform their lives.

The Minister highlighted that they were providing funds towards the Ba Women’s Forum Training Centre. $100,000 has been allocated from the ministry’s budget, from which $50,000 has been released to:

• Pay the administrators and trainers;
• Buy raw materials and supplies for the trainings;
•  Buy tools and product patterns; and
• Pay the trainees’ bus fares and allowance.

“While the Fijian Government has supported various organisations through financial contributions, it is their unique mandates to bring about positive change in our society that really makes them worthy of great appreciation.

“The impact of the work of civil society is life changing in most cases, especially when women are able to stand economically independent and reinvest their earnings to their families and households,” Ms Vuniwaqa said.

One of the graduates, Nageen Singh said that with like-minded women from the forum, she has been motivated to make life better.

“Honestly, it was not an easy road as most of us are mothers, wives, grandmothers and even single parents, but we stuck through it knowing that they will be something good out of it,” Ms Singh said.

The Ba Women’s Centre is equipped to provide training in computer studies, arts and crafts, which promote recycling, shell crafting, flower arrangement and product making (such as folder and compendiums, iri, and decorative accessories); courses also include sewing at the basic, advance and production levels; and food preparation (cooking, baking, preserves) with proper and well qualified teachers.

Edited by Jonathan Bryce

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