Education and Public Health In Fiji

Education 

The Early Childhood Education project focus on working with children 4 years of age and under in the villages of Nasinu, Silana and Nataleira a total of 43 children, facilitating learning through play sessions that support the development of skills in key developmental areas – cognitive, emotional, social and physical. Each village is visited twice a week; one-morning session focusing on cognitive learning and one-afternoon session focusing on social and physical learning. 

In April we will start the project again after a two-year closure due to  COVID. We are busy putting together educational resources packs to aid the volunteers in teaching. Each pack is designed around a theme i.e cars, balls. Then the volunteer will plan the lessons for three days using the resources packs. They will be assisted by a local community member who will help them plan and deliver the lessons. 

To ensure a holistic approach, we also delivered short courses for caregivers communicating the importance of Early Childhood Development and how children can be supported at home, focusing on the importance of parental involvement in the development of language and communication skills; motor skills; collaboration; and problem-solving. Sharing ideas on productive play and involvement with children, including creating activities and making toys that promote cognitive development. These sessions are run alongside the playgroup sessions this allows parents to attend while their children are enjoying learning and playing with their friends.

Public Health:

The main goal of the project is to support the functions of the District Nurse that are essential for both productivity and improving health and wellness. And provides support to increase the self-efficacy of 15 community health workers (CHWs) to be productive health providers within their communities that span between Dawasamu District and Bureiwai District. It is well-established that the CHWs are crucial to both optimizing quality of care and addressing increased patient volume.  GVI aides in human resources management and supporting CHW service delivery and encourage District Nurse role in continuous learning opportunities for her staff. All efforts aim to achieve the vision “The best medicine of all is to teach people not to need it.” A community health worker (CHW) is a community liaison between the village they live in and the district nurse. 

Over the next few months, we will start working with the communities of Dawasamu again, after meeting with the Dawasamu District Nurse one area she as asked us to focus on is nutrition, focusing on the diseases that can occur due to a poor diet, how this can affect a child's learning potential and growth. Resources are being created to assist with workshops which are designed to be interactive to ensure that workshops are interesting and enjoyed by all who take part.