Monday, April 23, 2007

Vina'a va'alevu All Saints Secondary School

from w
The Fiji Sun ran a story about the water sampling project at All Saints Secondary School in Labasa. This has been an on-going project for some time now to test the pollution in the Qawa River which has been very bad over the years. At least one thing the three floods did in Macuata this summer was to clean out the rivers!

Awareness project to protect river

From tomorrow students of All Saints Secondary school in Labasa will start their community awareness programme on pollution in the Qawa River.The aim of the students RiverCare Club is to make Qawa River a river and not a dumping ground.
This activity is part of their RiverCare project that has progressed after the last few years from just testing the water of Qawa River to community awareness a stronger partnership with the Fiji Sugar Corporation, and education signs on the river bridge. RiverCare, funded by the Vodafone ATH Foundation Fiji, is a project of Live & Learn Environmental Education carried out with Secondary Schools. The mission of the project is to empower people with the understanding that we can all be involved with caring for our rivers; we want to be able to drink from them, fish from them and pass them onto our children as previous generations have passed them on to us."This will be coordinated by science teacher Amit Maharaj and another three teachers. The students will hand out 200 pamphlets to people in Batinikama settlement upstream and the industrial area home to Fiji Sugar Corporation, Valebasoga Tropik Boards Ltd. and Fiji Electricity Authority.At a later date the students will present to the community their findings from the water monitoring and present.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!

I have a quick question for you. I'm working on a paper for an Ethics class I'm currently in, in which I'm focusing on the portrayal of the Fijian culture in this new season of the TV show Survivor. Your blog has come up in a number of searches I have done regarding this topic. (And has helped quite a bit!)

I was wondering if you had any more information that might help me in my paper. I'm particularly interested in how this show has impacted Fiji in general, through revenue and basic world-wide TV exposure. If you can direct me to any more sources of information that would be great to!

Here is my e-mail address if you would like to reach me. Thank you again!

Claire
claire1818@hotmail.com

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Hello Claire,
I don't get into email correpondence much via this blog. Maybe you could look up Fiji Visitors Bureau on the web and contact them about any impact upon tourism in the north island of Fiji etc. I haven't looked up much lately about /Survivor Fiji'. I was interested in the process of filming and its impact upon the people of Vunivutu village in the early days. The Fijians who live there were compensated for use of their land of course and also many people were employed for a few months. There were hiccups too on who got the money.
W.

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

PS Claire,
If you look up a Fiji telephone directory (on the web, Teldir I think it's called) and phone All Saints Secondary School, Labasa, ask for an email address or give them yours and a student or two could contact you. They'd know more than me.
w.

HappySurfer said...

Hi Wendy, that's a good school program, preserving the rivers. I wish they have that here as people are, like you said, using rivers as dumpsites.

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Hello Happysurfer, I checked out your blog and you are in Malaysia, right? A friend just came back from KL and really praised the cleanliness of the city. Perhaps he only saw 5 star hotel interiors and that's only part of any country's picture isn't it?
w.

HappySurfer said...

Wendy, generally KL, like other cities, is pretty clean but in the rural places, it's a different story though I'm glad the authorities have done a great job of cleaning up the rivers in and around the city. The city is actually quite pretty, if I may say so. Hope your friend enjoyed his visit with us.

Anonymous said...

Hello my name is Michael and I come from New Zealand. Me and my classmates are trying to stop pollution in our local river (the Hautapu) It would be awesome to start contact with your school. Please look at my page, my address is mcdoolan.blogger.com

Ariana said...

Hi Im Ariana Im From Taihape, New Zealand we are also doing a river clean up of the Hautapu River.
Please take a look at my blog and give any helpful ideas
wwww.ariana-is-cool.blogger.com

Cheers
Ariana

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

Michael and Areana,
Congratulations on being part of a project to clean up a river near you. I'm not at the school myself but if you want to contact them the phone number is 8811424 but dial the international number for Fiji first. They might give you an email address or how to be in touch with students there.
I've been to New Zealand just to Auckland and driven down to Hamilton. it's a wonderful place.
w.

Unknown said...

bula're...and hellow to every one,
thank for posting this blog about wot All Saint Secondary school is doing.
I'm relly proud of my former high school of doing a tremendous activity in preserving our enviroment especially trying to prevent or minimize water pollution.
As a former student, I realize that this river is usually not in a good condition during the period of Crusing season or when the Sugar Cane Mill start to operate. We assume that FSC use the water from the river to cool it's engine an clean the Mill as we can see that there is a run off pipe from the Mill into the river.
The water turn 'Black' and it give's a unplesant smell.
As a result, organism that lives around it die including fish, crabs and even mangrove plants. Also, the stinky smell that comes from the river poses a great threat to the health of student's in All Saint Secondary School which is located few meters away from the river and also to people who live along this river bank. During school days when the unpleasant smell comes, some students suffer form head ache and some end up vomoting.
Therefore, I conclude that the polluting of Qawa river is not a minor problem but it's an issue that need to be resolved soon because of the threat that it have to the people who live along this river bank especially to Student of All Saints and towards the Enviroment.

vina'a va'alevu
Thank you
MOGEE (mogytalemaitoga@yahoo.com)

Anonymous said...

This is Vinay Sharma. Live in Clovis, CA. USA.
Trying ti reconnect with old friends from class of 1977 thru 1981 at All Saints. I am in the facebook and email: vinay-sharma@sbcglobal.net