Nabulikula Club Invests In Landowners, Fights Poverty

Alleviating poverty in villages was the main reason Nabulikula Club was formed in October 2014.

It was through two friends, who grew up and farmed together in Kalabu, who gave birth to the vision of helping landowners utilise communally owned land to financially self-sustain them.

In an interview, Tower Insurance General Manager Veilawa Rereiwasaliwa said he and Anasa Tawake wanted to make a difference.

“We talk around the grog bowl about what iTaukei people should do, but I had the means to actually do it, so I got some money, we discussed the concept and we got straight into it.

“We had set a specific target like plant 100,000 dalo tops, 100,000 mounds of cassava and then we moved on to helping other individual farmers and villages.”

Investment

Mr Rereiwasaliwa said so far he had invested $190,000 in the various club projects and it had paid off. But for him, it wasn’t always about getting a return.

“The first lot was $150,000 for the Kalabu farm. What I wanted to do, I knew that I couldn’t succeed without actually addressing the supply of seedlings because if we don’t have a consistent supply of seedlings, we couldn’t really help other farmers because [seedlings] were expensive.

“Most of the money went into getting the seedlings, we had to plant 100,000 dalo tops to plant in the first year. We bought a digger and then a pickup truck.

“For five years, Kalabu has gone through drastic weather changes, insects damaging the crop, cyclones and stealing.”

The club has numerous projects, with Mr Tawake assisting 23 individual farmers.

“Projects that we’ve assisted that is still running include Tawake’s farms, Revurevu ni Cagi in Delaivalelevu, Kalabu village, Ketei in Totoya, Lau, Natila in Tailevu, Togalevu and Lami Methodist Circuit in Valenicina, Lami.

“Revurevu ni cagi made $9,000 last year just from ginger and dalo harvest and that’s a small church, this is their second year of harvest.

“In Natila village they plant yaqona for their own consumption, and what we advised them to do was to expand their farms so that they can build their church.

“Some of the boys working for Tawake, they also have their own farms, one of them harvested his ginger and made $8,000, two of them made more than $2,000 each.”

Some of the youths of Ketei village in Totoya, Lau, take a selfie at their yaqona farm.

Nabulikula Club assistance

For Ketei village, Mr Rereiwasaliwa funded the yaqona plants and Mr Tawake provided ginger seedlings.

For Natila village in Tailevu, Mr Tawake provided the ginger seedlings and dalo tops.

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